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«4 


CALVIN 


AND 


THE  REFORMATION 


FOUR  STUDIES 


BY 


;6niile  Doumergue 
August  Lang 

Herman  Bavinck 

Benjamin  B.  Warfield 


New  York  Chicago  Tobonto 

Fleming     H.     Revell     Company 

London     and      Edinbukgh 


I 


Y  \  ^  - 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
The  Princeton  Theological  Review  Association 


Fleming    H.    Re  veil    Company 

New  York:   158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:   80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto:    25  Richmond  St.,  W. 
London  :  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh  :    100  Princes  Street 


i 


PREFACE. 


The  Four  Studies  which  make  up  this  book  were  prepared 
for  "The  Princeton  Theological  Review"  and  published  dur- 
ing the  current  year.  The  editors  of  the  Review  in  reissu- 
ing them  in  book-form  hope  that  they  may  thus  become 
more  readily  accessible  and  more  widely  circulated,  and  that 
in  this  way  they  may  continue  to  serve  their  original  pur- 
pose of  contributing  in  some  measure  to  the  celebration  of 
the  four  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  John  Cal- 
vin. The  Study  on  "Calvin:  Epigone  or  Creator?"  was 
translated  by  Joseph  Heatly  Dulles,  A.M.,  Librarian  of 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary.  That  on  "The  Reforma- 
tion and  Natural  Law"  was  translated  by  J.  Gresham 
Machen,  A.M.,  B.D.,  Instructor  of  New  Testament  Litera- 
ture and  Exegesis  in  Princeton  Theological  Seminary.  This 
Study  will  appear  also  in  German  in  the  "Beitrage  zur  For- 
derung  christlicher  Theologie"  edited  by  Schlatter  and  Liit- 
gert.  The  Study  on  "Calvin  and  Common  Grace"  was  trans- 
lated by  Geerhardus  Vos,  Ph.D.,  D.D.,  Charles  T.  Haley 
Professor  of  Biblical  Theology  in  Princeton  Theological 
Seminary.  The  Four  Studies  have  been  edited  by  Wil- 
liam Park  Armstrong,  A.M.,  Professor  of  New  Testament 
Literature  and  Exegesis  in  Princeton  Theological  Seminary, 
on  behalf  of  the  Faculty  of  the  Seminary,  the  editors  of 
"The  Princeton  Theological  Review". 

Princeton,  N.  J.,  May  4th,  1909. 


*^'.- 


3 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

CALVIN :   EPIGONE  OR  CREATOR  ? i 

By  £mile  Doumergue,  Dean  of  the  Free  Theologi- 
cal Faculty  of  Montauban. 

THE  REFORMATION  AND  NATURAL  LAW. .     56 
By  August  Lang,  LicTheol.,  Privat-Dozent  in  the 
University  of  Halle-Wittenberg. 

CAJ.VIN  AND  COMMON  GRACE 99 

By  Herman  Bavinck,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theolc^ 
in  the  Free  University  of  Amsterdam. 

CALVIN'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE 

OF  GOD 131 

By  Benjamin  B.  Warfield,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Charles 
Hodge  Professor  of  Didactic  and  Polemic  Theology 
in  Princeton  Seminary. 

NOTES  215 


CALVIN:    EPIGONE  OR  CREATOR? 


By  £mile  Doumergue. 

Was  Calvin  a  Reformer?  This  is  a  question  under  dis- 
cussion to-day.  Was  Calvin  a  Protestant  or  was  he  a  Cath- 
olic? Is  the  Reformation  a  part  of  modem  times?  This 
is  discussed  to-day. 

We  might  be  surprised  that  these  questions  should  be 
discussed,  that  they  could  be  discussed.  Yet  is  it  not  to-day 
a  matter  of  debate  whether  St.  Paul  was  a  Christian  or  not? 
In  reality  these  amazing  questions  are  logical  and  natural. 
We  shall  show  this,  while  confining  ourselves  to  the  sphere 
within  which  the  discussion  is  now  carried  on,  the  social 
sphere. 


I.      RITSCHL. 

I.  Are  there  beginnings  in  history  that  are  altogether 
new?  It  may  be  doubted.  Yet  we  may,  with  sufficient 
exactness,  regard  Ritschl  as  the  originator  of  a  chauvinism, 
at  once  theological  and  Germanic,  and  of  a  kind  of  Lutheran 
nationalism,  the  methods  and  views  of  which  are  no  less 
obnoxious  than  the  methods  and  tendencies  of  the  most  vex- 
atious political  chauvinism  ard  nationalism. 

It  is  Ritschl  who  has  given  to  Lutheran  theolc^  this 
anti-Calvinistic  watchword :  "So  far  as  the  ideal  of  Calvin- 
ism is  anti-Catholic,  this  is  due  to  the  instigation  of  Luther ; 
so  far  as  it  departs  from  Luther,  it  goes  back  to  the  ideal  of 
the  Franciscans— of  the  Franciscans  and  Anabaptists."* 


£mile  doumergue 


Every  one  who  knows  the  exegetical  and  historical  vio- 
lence by  which  Ritschl  deduces  his  theological  system  from 
the  Bible,  can  surmise  how  he  treats  the  texts  of  Luther  and 
Calvin.  As  to  Luther,  he  himself  confesses  that  he  inter- 
prets him,  not  as  he  has  formally  expressed  himself,  but 
according  to  what  his  words  seem  to  him  to  suggest.*  And 
as  to  Calvin — we  have  mere  fiction,  mere  romance.  In  our 
opinion  Ritschl  makes  him  say  exactly  the  opposite  of  that 
which  he  thought. 

To  Ritschl  the  distinguishing  thing  in  Calvinism  is  its 
tendency  to  monastic  asceticism, — "a  near  approach  to  mon- 
astic flight  from  the  world  that  is  easily  recognizable." 

In  order  to  prove  this,  Ritschl  goes  back  to  Egypt  and 
Gaul:  "I  recall  that  the  ancient  monachism,  developed  in 
Eg\'pt.  was  first  accepted  in  Gaul."  It  is  easy  to  pass  from 
Gaul  to  France,  to  the  great  reforms  of  monachism:  those 
of  Cluny,  Chartreux,  Citeaux.  This  shows  the  French  tem- 
perament. Then,  France  was  the  country  of  the  Crusades. 
After  that  the  University  of  Paris  furnished  "a  striking 
example  of  the  subjection  of  many  persons  to  discipline" 
(Disciplinirung).^  In  the  17th  century  there  were  the 
Trappists,  Jansenism,  Quietism.  Quietism,  it  is  true,  was 
not  born  in  France.  But  that  matters  little,  since  it  found 
there  an  important  representation.  And  the  French  Reform- 
ers were  Frenchmen.  Then  Calvin  resembles  a  Catholic 
monk.  He  had  no  need  of  recreation  (we  shall  see  the  con- 
trary). He  set  himself  against  many  things  that  pertained 
to  free  living,  to  the  delights  of  art,  as  did  the  Franciscans 
(we  shall  see  the  contrary). 

On  the  other  hand,  over  against  Calvin,  with  his  French 
temperament  and  its  defects,  stands  Luther,  with  his  German 
temperament  and  its  traits.  On  the  one  side,  the  instinct  of 
severity ;  on  the  other,  the  instinct  of  liberty.    "Along  with 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR    CREATOR? 


the  coarseness,  reproved  by  Luther,  and  the  independence  of 
the  Germans,  their  sense  of  individual  and  moral  liberty 
is  the  true  reason  for  their  resistance  to  a  general  law  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Frenchman  (Calvin,  for  instance),  who  thought  it  natural 
to  put  into  universal  practice  the  rules  of  discipline  found 
in  the  New  Testament,  relied  upon  the  instinct  of  equality 
and  upon  the  inclination  to  permit  all  sorts  of  discipline,  in 
which  his  French  fellow  citizens  are  distinguished  from  the 
Germans."" 

We  must  pass  by  the  development,  not  less  suggestive, 
that  Ritschl  gives  to  this  fundamental  thesis,  and  confine 
ourselves  to  mentioning  the  method  of  treating  texts  and 
facts,  which  reduces  Calvinism  to  the  rank  of  a  mere  Prus- 
sian corporal,  relieved  through  German  Lutheranism  of  the 
creation  of  the  Huguenots,  the  Beggars  and  the  Puritans. 

2.  This  Ritschlian  and  pan-Germanic  method  of  writing 
history  has  had  an  enormous  success,  and  many  German 
theologians  have  regarded  as  the  word  of  the  Gospel  the 
p.ffirmations  of  the  theologian,  who,  after  all,  adjusts  the 
Gospel  to  his  fancy.  We  cite  only  two  theologians,  other- 
wise moderate  and  remarkable  for  their  scientific  attainment. 

F.  Kattenbusch'  is  willing  to  grant  a  place  of  honor  to 
Calvin  alongside  of  the  two  great  German  Reformers,  be- 
cause he  was  "the  most  gifted  organizer"  of  churches.  But 
he  has  made  "the  idea  of  Protestantism"  submit  to  a  "certain 
mutilation"  (eine  getvisse  Vcrkitmmcrting).  He  has  given 
it  a  form  that  cannot  be  regarded  as  entirely  authentic' 
Without  doubt  he  belongs  "to  the  epoch  of  the  epigones". 
This  epoch  did  not  have  the  "energy",  the  "vivacity"  of  the 
preceding.  Calvin  had  a  "mechanical  conception"  of  the  ex- 
amples left  by  the  theocracy  of  the  Old  Testament  and  by 
the  Apostolic  communities.     "In  what  measure  was  he  in- 


iMILE   DOUMERGUE 


fluenced  by  the  ideas  of  certain  reformers  of  the  Middle 
Ages?"  This  question  must  be  left  open  for  the  present. 
In  any  event,  he  did  not  have  the  "spiritual  liberty"  of 
Luther  and  Zwingli.^ 

3.  That  we  find  these  ideas  entertained  by  scholars  as 
distinguished  and  as  moderate  as  Professor  Loofs  of  Halle, 
shows  to  what  extent  they  are  disseminated  and  in  what 
degree  they  are  fixed  in  stereotyped  formulas.  "It  is  cer- 
tain that  Calvin,  because  of  his  practical  activity,  should  be 
regarded  as  a  Reformer,  but  as  a  theologian  he  is  an 
epigone  of  the  Reformation."^  All  that  may  be  conceded 
is  that  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Institutes  he  seems  to  be  a 
Lutheran  of  Upper  Germany  (oberdeutscher  Lutheraner) ^ 
But  Catholic  influence  came.  "As  with  Zwingli,  the  Aug- 
ustinian-Catholic  leaven  must  be  recognized  here  (d  propos 
of  the  sacraments)."^" 

4.  This  Ritschlian  conception  of  Calvinism  has  taken  a 
new  start  with  two  treatises  published  by  Martin  Schulze.** 

The  honorable  theologian  believes  that  he  has  made 
a  discovery;  for  according  to  him  only  two  authors  have 
suggested  his  idea:  the  aged  de  Wette,  who  limits  himself 
to  a  brief  reflexion,  and  Pierson,  the  Dutch  writer.  The 
latter  is  well  known  to  all  historians  of  Calvin  for  his  para- 
doxical theses,  based  on  ci  itical  and  exegetical  exaggerations 
and  on  a  blind  opposition  to  Calvinism.  Why  does  Schulze 
not  cite  Ritschl  ?  Is  it  on  account  of  the  "variations"  that  he 
introduces  in  his  thesis?  Schulze  adds  a  Platonic  to  the 
Catholic  influence,  but  the  result  is  always  the  same :  Luth- 
eran superiority,  Calvinistic  inferiority,  because  of  the  as- 
cetic and  monastic  tendency. 

"Calvin  diflfered  from  Luther  in  this,  that  with  him — 
Calvin — salvation  is  essentially  a  matter  of  hope,  and  so 
relations  with  this  world  take  an  ascetic  form."'^  "After  all, 


CALVIN :     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


it  must  be  said  that  Calvin  did  not,  in  principle,  rise  above 
the  Monastic  ideal  of  life,  although  life  had  for  him  a  more 
profound  meaning,  and  although  the  effort  to  realize  it  was 
far  purer  with  him  than  in  monachism.^^  Moreover,  "Cal- 
vin's conception  of  life  resembles  exactly  that  sketched  here, 
essentially  after  the  Phaedo.  The  agreement  extends,  as 
I  have  shown,  even  to  the  detail  of  exposition  and  pxpres- 
sion.  *' 

5.  The  views  of  Schulze  have  been  outlined  by  Th. 
Shoell  in  the  Bulletin  de  la  Societe  de  I'histoire  du  protest- 
antisme  franqais  in  the  following  terms :  "Calvin,  in  prin- 
ciple, at  least,  did  not  rise  above  the  monastic  ideal  of  life. 
.  .  .  These  ideas  went  back  to  the  Bible  only  in  a  measure, 
and  proceeded  rather  from  Plato.  .  .  .  The  theologian 
remained  humanist.  But  Calvin  was  not  conscious  of  this 
fusion  of  Christian  and  Platonic  elements.  .  .  .  Erasmus 
and  Calvin  preached  the  monachism  of  sentiment." 

And  after  having  been  so  indicated  these  opinions  are 
approved:  "We  conclude.  The  first  impression  of  the 
reader  is  that  Schulze  defends  a  preconceived  thesis,  inas- 
much as  every  one  of  his  chapters  issues  inexorably  in  the 
same  result.  However,  after  a  close  study  of  his  numerous 
citations  and  his  synoptic  tables,  one  is  persuaded  that  these 
conclusions  agree,  on  the  whole,  with  the  reality,  which  (he 
makes  us  aware  of  this  from  the  beginning)  lessens  the 
originality  of  Cahm  only  in  an  insignificant  degree."^' 

We  make  this  citation  without  asking  how  the  fact  that 
he  did  not,  in  principle,  transcend  the  monastic  ideal  of  life, 
could  not  at  all  lessen  the  originality  of  a  Protestant  Re- 
former ! 

6.  A  recent  author  has  united  and,  as  it  were,  condensed 
and  popularized  the  ideas  of  Ritschl  and  Schulze,  namely, 
Bernhard  Bess  in  Unsere  religiosen  Erzieher}^     Between 


EMILE    DOUMERGUE 


Luther  and  Calvin  there  is  the  difference  of  the  two  nations 
which  they  represent,  Germany  and  France.    In  France  we 
have  monachisni,  the  organization  of  asceticism,  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  masses ;  in  Germany,  we  have  an  almost  mor- 
bid bent  to  individual  liberty.     With  Zwingli,  also,  there  is 
"a  German  feeling  for  liberty"  (ein  gcrmanisches  Freiheits- 
gcfi'M).     "For  Calvin's  nature,  sanguine  to  the  point  of 
fanaticism,   servile  submission  to  the  letter  was  content- 
ment."'^    At  first  Calvin  showed  himself  to  be  Lutheran, 
and  it  is  only  in  1539  that  his  fall  occurred.    Bess  takes  from 
Calvin  what  his  predecessors  still  allowed  him,  for  example, 
the  preeminence  of  his  ecclesiastical  conceptions.     Just  the 
reverse  of  this  is  true,  according  to  our  author:    "On  no 
other  point  is  it  seen  so  clearly  that  Calvin  was  not  a  theo- 
logian of  original  significance  {kein  Theolog  von  originaler 
Bcdcutung),  and  that  the  penetration  {die  Sch'drfc)  of  his 
understanding  deserted  him,  when  opposing  interests  strug- 
gled within  him.  In  the  chapter  on  the  'Church'  he  has  repro- 
duced partly  Luther,  partly  Zwingli."**    Alongside  of  recol- 
lections of  Luther  there  is  also  the  doctrine  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  the  State  is  only  the  body,  but  the  Church  is  the 
soul     ...     On  one  side,  an  attempt  to  keep  to  the  words 
and  ideas  of  Luther;    but  under  the  surface  a  profound 
contrary  current,  in  which  the  ideas  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
pure  and  simple,  are  seen.    "And  it  is  this  current  that,  in 
fact,  bore  him  away."     What  happens  as  to  the  Church,  hap- 
pens as  to  morals:   the  Middle  Ages  again!     All  that  has 
been  said  by  Ritschl  and  by  Kattenbusch  recurs :   "his  very 
contemporaries  saw  a  new  monachism  (Monchcrei)  in  his 
regulations  of  morals."'" 

7.  Finally,  this  movement  has  produced  an  article  which 
we  shall  not  discuss.  But,  for  the  just  punishment  of  those 
who  have  posited  so  many  false  principles,  we  shall  point 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


out  the  conclusions  which  the  Rev.  Thomas  C.  Hall,  Pro- 
fessor of  Christian  Ethics  in  Union  Theological  Seminary 
of  New  York,  draws  from  them.  They  may  be  found  in 
an  article  which  bears  the  title:  "Was  John  Calvin  a  Re- 
former or  a  Reactionary  ?"^" 

F»re  is  the  truth  ("as  a  simple  matter  of  fact"),  which 
has  e^^aped  Schweitzer,  Lobstein,  Kuyper,  Stahelin,  de 
Wett.',  Gass,  Ziegler.  One  asks  why  Dr.  Hall  does  not  cite 
those,  whom  this  truth  has  not  escaped,  and  who  have 
pushed  these  principles  to  the  extreme, — Ritschl,  Schulze, 
and  others.  We  read:  "As  a  simple  matter  of  fact,  the 
ethical  system  of  Calvin  is  profoundly  reactionary,  scholastic 
and  Roman  Catholic  in  both  method  and  aim."**  "The 
whole  conception  of  the  Christian  life,  as  Calvin  draws  it,  is 
Roman  Catholic  rather  than  Protestant."**  "In  the  relation 
of  the  authoritative  Church  to  the  authoritative  State,  Calvin 
adopts,  substantially,  the  traditional  Roman  Catholic  point 
of  view,  save  only  that  it  must  be  a  true  Biblical  Church  to 
be  authoritative."*'  "In  point  of  fact,  Calvin's  State  is  a 
theocracy  after  the  type  of  Gregory  the  Great,  with  the 
'divine  ministry'  in  the  place  of  the  pope."**  "On  such  a 
basis  no  Protestant  ethics  can  be  built  up.  Calvinism  has,  in 
point  of  fact,  been  singularly  barren  in  ethical  work.  Even 
her  casuistry  has  been  poor  and  feeble."*'  "Hence  it  is  quite 
comprehensible  how  barren  Calvinistic  theology  has  been  on 
its  ethical  side."*'  "Hence  on  ethical  grounds  we  may  say 
that  Calvin  was  one  of  the  last,  though  not  one  of  the 
greatest,  of  the  schoolmen.  Thomas  Aquinas  is  really 
greatly  his  superior  in  almost  every  particular  as  an  ethical 
thinker."  It  is  not  enough,  even,  to  speak  of  Thomas 
Aquinas.  The  ethics  of  Calvin  calls  to  mind  the  ethics  of 
Loyola.  "Holiness  plays  a  large  part  in  Calvin's  thought, 
just  as  it  does  in  that  of  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Ignatius 


8 


tUlLE   DOUMERGUE 


Lovola,  whose  ethical  system  is  most  nearly  akin  to  that  of 
Caivin."" 

We  shall  take  good  care  not  to  discuss  this  rare,  this 
unique  series  of  oddities  .We  should  be  afraid  of  weakening 
the  convincing  force  of  this  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the 
Ritschlian  theories.  Only,  at  the  risk  of  being  accused  of 
real  cruelty,  after  having  inflicted  on  the  Ritschlian  school 
the  reading  of  the  criticism  with  which  it  has  inspired  Dr. 
Hall  against  Calvin,  we  shall  afflict  it  with  the  reading  of 
his  praise  of  Luther.  Calvin  has  all  the  faults  and  Luther 
all  the  virtues.  Dr.  Hall  is  an  admirer  of  Luther.  And 
truly  we  are  sorry  for  Luther,  who  is  as  much  above  these 
eulogiums  as  Calvin  is  above  this  criticism.  "On  the  intel- 
lectual and  philosophical  reconstruction  of  ethics  Calvinism 
has  left  no  such  mark  as  that  made  by  one  single  work  of 
Luther's,  Die  Freiheit  des  Christenmenschen."^^ 

In  order  to  prove  this  it  suffices  to  declare  anti-Lutheran 
the  doctrines  of  Luther  on  the  sacraments  and  on  the  sub- 
ject-will,— precisely  the  doctrines  which  the  Reformer  held 
most  tenaciously.    And  then,  to  lend  Calvin  Luther's  ideas ! 

We  read:  "In  Luther's  system  sacramentalism  was  an 
unfortunate  and  illogical  intrusion  upon  his  fundamental 
thought.  "2^  "In  spite  of  Luther's  most  unfortunate  realism 
in  his  interpretation  of  hoc  est  corpus  nteum,  he  remains 
substantially  (though  not  wholly)  unaffected  in  his  ethics 
by  the  element  of  sacramental  magic."  And  it  is  not  Luther, 
it  is  Calvin,  who  attached  too  great  importance  to  the  sacra- 
ments. "In  Calvin  the  sacraments  are  essential  to  the 
Christian  ethical  rfe."^"  And  the  same  is  true  of  the  subject- 
will  :  "Thus,  again,  Luther's  unfortunate  incursion  into  the 
realm  of  metaphysical  speculation  on  the  freedom  of  the 
will  had  a  genuine  ethical  interest  and  can  be  resolved  into 
a  relatively  harmless  though  unfortunate  psychological  de- 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR?  9 

terminism.    This  is  not  the  case  with  Calvin's  doctrine  of 
decrees."'* 

The  only  conclusion  that  can  be  drawn  from  this  is  that 
there  are  theologians  who  are  not  afraid  to  be  ridiculous. 

II.      TROELTSCH. 

I.  Unhappily,  before  the  Ritschlian  system  had  fallen 
under  the  assaults  of  such  a  reductio  ad  absurdum,  it  was 
caught  up  by  Prof.  Troeltsch,  whom  one  of  his  critics  calls 
"the  very  learned,  penetrating,  able  and  spiritual  representa- 
tive of  systematic  theology  of  Heidelberg."" 

The  address  which  he  gave  on  the  21st  of  April,  1906, 
at  Stuttgart,  in  the  Ninth  Congress  of  German  Historians, 
was  much  talked  of.  Its  echoes  still  reverberate.  The  sub- 
ject was :  "The  Importance  of  Protestantism  for  the  Rise  of 
the  Modern  World."" 

The  discourse  is  noteworthy.  With  very  great  ability  the 
author  discusses  the  Church,  the  State,  science,  art,  soci- 
ology, political  economy,  and  in  all  these  subjects  compares 
the  Catholic,  the  Lutheran,  the  Calvinistic  and  the  modem 
ideas.  It  is  a  whole  religious  encyclopaedia  condensed  into 
sixty-six  pages. 

It  is  not  the  least  remarkable  that  Troeltsch  divests  him- 
self of  all  chauvinistic,  nationalistic  passion;  he  speaks  as  a 
historian ;  and  if  he  receives  his  idea  from  his  master  Ritschl, 
he  presents  it  with  true  impartiality  and  real  knowledge. 

Thus,  all  at  once,  the  idea  is  entirely  changed.  What 
Ritschl  had  said  against  Calvin  Troeltsch  maintains  must 
be  applied  equally  to  Luther.  Calvin,  an  epigone?  Yes,  but 
Luther  also  an  epigone;  two  epigones  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Calvin  an  ascetic?  Yes,  but  Luther  also  an  ascetic;  two 
monastic  ascetics,  etc. 

And  then  it  is  truly  amusing  to  observe  the  attitude  of  cer- 


lO 


EMILE   DOUMERGUE 


tain  Lutheran  theologians.  What  they  found  quite  correct 
when  said  of  Calvin,  they  have  found  out  of  place  and  inju- 
rious when  said,  texts  and  facts  in  hand,  with  equal  justice, 
of  Luther.  They  are  like  children,  who,  after  having  played 
with  dangerous  weapons,  are  terrified  when  they  perceive 
that  they  themselves  are  wounded.  We  have  a  conspicuous 
refutation  of  Troeltsch  by  Loofs. 

As  for  us,  we  congratulate  the  Heidelberg  Professor  on 
his  sercr  Ity,  his  scientific  impartiality.  When  one  speaks  of 
the  Reformers — not  of  this  or  that  detail  of  their  work, 
but  of  the  work  itself — they  may  not  be  separated.  They 
stand  or  fall  together.  And  there  is  no  need  of  changing 
our  point  of  view,  as  we  look  at  men  and  facts.  The  thesis 
which  we  found  false,  when  directed  against  Calvin  alone, 
appears  no  more  true  when  directed  against  the  entire  Re- 
formation. Only  we  add,  that  under  this  new  form,  the  old 
idea  of  Ritschl  has  become  what  it  was  not,  specious, — at 
times  seductive.  It  appears  supported  by  many  arguments. 
Hence  it  is  worth  while  to  examine  it  and  to  discuss  it 
carefully. 

2.  According  to  Troeltsch  the  influence  of  Protestantism 
should  neither  be  denied  nor  exaggerated  (einseitig  iiber- 
triebcn).^*  We  have  to  do  with  three  terms  and  their  reci- 
procal relations:  Catholicism — identified  with  the  Middle 
Ages, — Protestantism,  and  Modern  Times.  Let  us  define 
them,  according  to  Troeltsch. 

Catholic  or  mediaeval  culture  is  characterized  by  two  ele- 
ments: authority  and  asceticism;  a  divine  authority  exer- 
cised by  the  Church,  in  virtue  of  which  everything  is 
related  to  God;  and  asceticism,  that  is  to  say,  the  concen- 
tration of  every  activity  of  life  in  God. 

Modern  culture  is  the  reverse  of  mediaeval  culture.  To 
authority  it  opposes  autonomy,  with  its  resultant  individual- 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


It 


ism ;  to  asceticism  it  opposes  the  enjoyment  of  this  world's 
goods.  No  more  hereditary  corruption,  and  no  more  ex- 
tra-mundane deliverance  from  this  corruption!  Life  finds 
its  aim  and  its  ideal  more  and  more  here  below. 

And  what  of  Protestantism  ?  Naturally,  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  modern  and  modernized  Protestantism,  but  of  the 
old,  primitive,  only  authentic  Protestantism."  This  latter 
wished  to  produce  and  did  produce  a  culture  of  authority 
and  a.jceticism.  "The  old,  true  Protestantism,  in  its  Lu- 
theran and  Calvinistic  form,  is  altogether  an  ecclesiastical 
culture,  in  the  mediaeval  sense.  It  would  regulate  the  State 
and  society,  civilization  and  science,  political  economy  and 
law,  according  to  the  supernatural  rules  of  Revelation."" 

Hence  the  modern  world  begins,  in  reality,  not  at  the 
opening,  but  at  the  close  of  the  century  of  the  Reformation, 
with  the  second  half  of  the  17th  century,  in  such  sort  that 
Protestantism  still  belongs  to  the  culture  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Indeed,  more  often  it  has  reinforced  the  mediaeval 
spirit  of  this  culture.  "It  endeavors  to  cause  the  conception 
of  ecclesiastical  civilization,  etc.,  to  triumph  with  its  own 
methods,  and  to  make  it  triumph  more  sternly,  more  pro- 
foundly, more  personally,  than  the  hierarchial  institution  of 
the  Middle  Ages  could  do.  The  authority  and  the  saving 
power  (Heilskraft)  of  the  Bible  alone  effect  that  which 
bishops  and  popes  could  not  do  with  their  external  means 
and  the  vast  secularisation  of  their  Institution.""^ 

Troeltsch  concludes  that  the  influences  of  Protestantism 
upon  the  modern  world  are  above  all  indirect,  unconscious, 
accidental  (sufallig),^^  involuntary.  As  to  the  "direct,  im- 
mediate" influences, — these  are  due,  not  to  Protestantism, 
properly  so-called,  but  to  two  intimate  adversaries  of  the  old 
Protestantism,  so  vigorously  repulsed  and  attacked  by  it, 
the  rationalism  of  the  Renaissance  (incarnated  in  Arminian- 


12 


6mILE   DOUMERGIE 


ism  and  Socinianism)  and  the  spiritualism  of  the  Anabap- 
tists."" 

3.     Certainly,  all  this  looks  very  simple.Troeltsch,  how- 
ever, has  simplified  his  study  by  overlooking  a  fourth  term. 
And  what  is  that?    Christianity.     Neither  more  nor  less! 
The  Middle  Ages  present  a  culture  in  which  Christianity 
(which  does  not  come  from  the  Middle  Ages)  and  Catholic- 
ism   are    mingled.      Protestantism    received    Christianity, 
which  it  tried  to  lead  back  to  its  primitive  purity :  it  rejected 
Catholicism.    As  to  the  modem  world,  it  includes  Christian 
and  anti-Christian  elements.  It  is  the  boast  of  Protestantism 
that  it  has  transmitted  the  Christian  elements;  it  is  useless 
to  prove  that  Protestantism  has  not  transmitted  the  anti- 
Christian  elements ;  it  boasts  of  this  also !    Such  is  the  thesis 
of  the  true  Protestants,  who  think  themselves  the  legitimate 
successors  of  the  Reformers.    As  Troeltsch  refutes  another, 
altogether  different  thesis,  the}'  might  well  content  them- 
selves with  meeting  Troeltsch's  argument  with  a  simple 
dismissal.    Far  from  having  transfixed  them  by  his  brilliant 
assault,  Troeltsch  has  not  even  touched  them.    He  has  been 
fencing  with  a  phantom.    But  this  is  precisely  what  we  have 
to  explain. 

4.  Let  us  begin  with  the  more  general  principles.  Ac- 
cording to  Troeltsch,  Protestantism  is  limited  to  stating  the 
old  question  of  salvation:  "This  (he  tells  us  repeatedly), 
is  only  the  old  question"  (durch  und  durch  nur  die  alte 
Fragc).*°  Now  this  question.  —  What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved?  is  not  at  all  a  specifically  Catholic  and  mediaeval 
question;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  specifically  Christian 
question, — that  of  the  Apostles,  that  of  the  Gospels,  that 
which  Christ  came  to  answer.  What  is  Catholic  is  the  an- 
swer which  the  Middle  Ages  gave  to  this  question.  But 
Troeltsch  declares  that  "Protestantism  came  only  to  bring 


CALVIV:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


13 


"41 


a  new  answer."  It  answers,  not  by  sending  man  to  the 
saving  institution  of  the  hierachy,  the  Church  of  the  priests, 
to  the  opus  opcratum  of  the  sacraments,  but  by  speaking  to 
him  "of  a  personal  decision  of  faith"  (einen  personlichen 
Glaubenscntscliluss)  .*•  Yet  Protestantism  is  a  different 
form  of  reUgion  from  Catholicism ;  it  gives  men  another  atti- 
tude toward  the  Church,  toward  God.  Man  (believing)  in 
the  view  of  Protestantism  is  different  from  man  (believing) 
in  the  view  of  Catholicism.  So  over  against  the  old  man  of 
the  Middle  Ages  there  is  a  modem  man  that  the  Reforma- 
tion sets  up.  And,  once  more,  the  scaffolding  erected  by 
Troeltsch  crumbles  at  its  base. 

5.  Let  us  urge  a  particular  example  which  is  supplied  by 
Loofs.  This  theologian  presents,  a  propos  of  justification 
by  faith,  some  observations  which  might  be  presented  d, 
propos  of  a  mass  of  resemblances  between  the  Middle  Ages 
and  the  Reformation.  Too  often  the  old  proverb  is  for- 
gotten :  When  two  say  the  same  thing,  they  do  not  say  the 
same  thing.  "Troeltsch  emphasizes  the  tie  that  unites  Lu- 
ther's doctrine  of  justification  with  the  Augustinian  tra- 
dition of  the  Middle  Ages.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  new 
in  this  for  a  dogmatician.  Luther  did  not  simply  exhume 
the  Pauline  conceptions ;  the  age-long  development  of  ideas 
before  him  did  not  pass  without  exercising  some  influence 
upon  him  .  .  .  But,  verily,  where  is  there  in  history 
anything  new  for  which  there  has  not  been  some  prepara- 
tion? The  ideas  of  Luther  on  justification  are  new  with 
respect  to  the  Middle  Ages,  although  their  genesis  can  only 
be  understood  in  their  relation  to  the  Middle  Ages.  For 
Dilthey  is  mistaken,  when  he  thinks  that  St.  Augustine,  St. 
Bernard,  Tauler  and  the  so-called  Theologia  Germanica, 
had  already  taught  the  doctrine  of  justification  that  Luther 
taught.     No  doubt,  the  thesis  accord'^g  to  which  man  be- 


14 


£mile  doumekcue 


comes  just  before  God  only  by  faith  is  not  unknown  in  the 
Catholic  Church,  as  has  been  shown  since  the  affirmations 
of  Dilthey.  Not  in  the  works  of  St.  Augustine,  but 
throughout  the  West  in  his  time  and  up  to  the  middle  of 
Scholasticism  it  was  widely  current.  But  what  was  un- 
derstood by  this  doctrine  was  only  that  (iod  demanded 
faith  alone,  that  is  to  say,  the  acceptance  of  ecclesiastical 
beliefs,  in  the  man  who  presented  himself  for  baptism  and 
who  in  baptism  received  the  pardon  of  all  his  sins  committed 
up  to  that  time.  For  Luther  this  doctrine  had  a  totally 
different  meaning.  With  him  it  was  a  question  of  the  foun- 
dation upon  which  the  long-since  baptised  believer  could 
build  his  assurance  that  he  could  stand  before  God :  Not 
upon  any  act  whatsoever,  but  ?  olely  upon  the  grace  of  God, 
confidently  received  by  faith.  Here  is  what  was  new  over 
against  the  Middle  Ages:  Religion  was,  in  principle,  sep- 
arated from  age-long  ethical,  mystical  and  metaphysical 
perversions.  .  .  .  With  Luther  the  idea  is  entirely  clear. 
.  .  .  To  be  justified  is  to  enter  into  the  right  relation  to 
God  upon  the  basis  of  an  experience  of  His  grace.  In  this 
idea  the  fulcrum  of  Archimedes  was  found,  by  which  the 
whole  papal  Church  could  be  overthrown."*^ 

6.  But,  returning  to  the  more  general  ideas,  we  must 
notice  the  asceticism  with  which  Ritschl  and  his  school  have 
so  much  reproached  Calvin,  and  which  Troeltsch  discovers 
equally  in  the  entire  Reformation.**  As  to  this  equalization 
he  is  not  wrong.  Far  from  having  put  an  end  to  ascetism. 
Protestantism,  says  Troeltsch,  has  preserved  heaven  and 
hell,  while  it  has  suppressed  purgatory,  which  made  the 
other  world  a  little  less  terrifying.*'  Now  in  the  Gospel, 
of  which  Troeltsch  does  not  speak,  heaven  and  hell  are 
mentioned,  but  purgatory  is  not.    Must  it  be  inferred  from 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


15 


this  that  the  primitive  Gospel  is  reinforced  mediaeval  Catho- 
licism ? 

Further,  says  Trocltsch,  the  central  question  of  Protes- 
tantism is  always  the  certainty  of  salvation,  deli  /erance  from 
the  deserved  condemnation  of  original  sin.  And  Prot- 
estantism has,  on  this  point,  strengthened  the  Augustinian 
dogma.*"  But  once  more,  the  question  of  salvation  is,  pre- 
eminently, the  evangelical  question.  And  St.  Paul  is  more 
strict  than  Pelagius.  Must  we  conclude  from  this  that  the 
primitive  Gospel  is  reinforced  mediaeval  Catholicism? 

Troeltsch  admits  that  in  Protestantism  the  ascetic  idea  has 
changed  its  form  and  meaning.  He  adds,  "only"  (nur  die 
Form  und  den  Sinn  gezv^chsclt)."  But  one  has  the  right 
to  ask  what  is  an  idea,  which  has  changed  its  form  and 
meaning?  And  what  can  two  ideas,  which  have  neither  the 
same  form  nor  the  same  rr"»aning,  have  in  common? 

We  proceed:  "Protesta.  ^m",  says  Troeltsch,  "has  re- 
jected monachism  and  the  »iionastic  life  of  the  clergy.  But 
it  has  not  done  this  because  it  regarded  the  values  and  pos- 
sessions of  this  world  as  ends  in  themselves  (Selbstzwecke) 

.  .  .  The  world  ...  is  the  natural  soil,  the  con- 
dition of  the  Christian  life.  This  natural  condition  must  not 
be  artificially  avoided  .  .  .  This  would  only  encourage 
the  illusion  of  merits,  of  the  cooperation  of  man  with  grace, 
and  conceal  the  real  difficulty,  which  is  to  possess  the  world 
as  if  one  possessed  it  not."**  All  this  is  true,  but  all  this  is 
authentic  Christianity,  and  no  less  authentic  anti-Catholicism. 
How  shall  we  conclude  from  the  fact  that  Protestantism  has 
broken  from  the  Middle  Ages  in  order  to  return  to  the  Gos- 
pel, that  it  has  continued  the  Middle  Ages  in  an  aggravated 
form? 

Indee^,  Troeltsch  becomes  embarrassed,  confused;  he 
flounders  about  with  facts  and  words.     "Without  doubt", 


1 6 


EMILE   DOUMEKGUE 


says  he,  "there  is  here  a  higher  instinctive  estimation  of  the 
order  of  creation  than  in  Catholicism;  .  .  .  there  is  here 
a  more  intimate  union  of  the  natural  order  and  the  redemp- 
tive order,  than  in  Catholicism  .  .  .  We  must  live  in 
the  world,  and  overcome  it  while  remaining  in  the  midst  of 
it,  resting  our  salvation,  our  happiness,  solely  in  our  justifi- 
cation and  in  the  expiatory  death  of  Christ.  We  ought  never 
to  trust  in  the  world,  never  to  forget  the  penalty  of  sin 

.  .  .  There  is  an  asceticism  which  is  not  less  ascetic, 
because  it  does  not  show  itself  in  the  form  of  monachism, 
because  it  denies  the  world  inwardly  and  from  within,  in- 
stead of  fleeing  from  it  outwardly.  It  might  be  designated 
asceticism  in  the  world  (innerwcltliche  Askese)  in  con- 
trast with  Catholic  asceticism,  which  is  characterized  by 
a  life  without  and  alongside  of  the  world."''^  Here  then  is 
the  Protestant  asceticism  which  is  contrary  to  Catholic  as- 
ceticism. How  can  it  be  said  that  the  one  is  a  continuation 
of  the  other?  Do  not  these  two  asceticisms  presuppose  a 
contradictory  conception  of  the  religious  life  and  of  the 
world  ?  Why  keep  the  same  name  to  designate  two  contrary 
things. — and  does  not  the  adjective  here  devour  the  substan- 
tive? What  is  this  intra-mundane,  one  might  say  this  almost 
mundane,  asceticism,  this  asceticism  that  permits  the  use  of 
the  world  ?  It  is  true  that  this  is  not  the  conception  of  the 
Renaissance  or  of  modern  poetry.  Assuredly  not,  any  more 
than  Christianity  is  paganism. 

Troeltsch  ends  by  distinguishing  Lutheran  asceticism, 
which  is  "essentially  an  accommodation  (Sichfilgen)  and 
surrender  (Ergcben),a.  transference  of  all  hope  to  the  happy 
beyond,  and  a  martyr's  joy  in  the  world",  from  Calvin- 
istic  asceticism,  which  had  an  altogether  different  character. 
"It  is.  like  all  Calvinism,  active,  aggressive ;  it  would  trans- 
form the  world,  to  the  honor  of  God.  ...    In  order  to  this 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


17 


end,  it  rationalizes  and  disciplines  all  life  by  its  ethical  the- 
ories and  by  its  ecclesiastical  discipline.  ...  In  mere  feeling 
(Gcfiihligkeit  iind  Stimmung)  it  sees  only  inertness  and 
lack  of  seriousness;  it  is  filled  with  a  fundamental  senti- 
ment :  labor  for  God,  for  the  honor  of  the  Church !  Thus 
the  spirit  of  Calvinistic  ethics  produces  a  lively  activity,  a 
severe  discipline,  a  complete  plan,  a  social-Christian  aim".'" 
Is  it  not,  truly,  an  abuse  of  words  to  speak  thus  of  ascetic- 
ism? 

In  reality,  when  one  thus  sees  that  Protestantism,  and 
(note  it  well)  particularly  Calvinism,  inspires  souls  with 
this  anti-Catholic  conception  of  life,  of  activity  in  society, 
one  can  but  be  surprised  at  Troeltsch's  conclusion :  "In  these 
conditions  it  is  evident  that  Protestantism  was  not  able  im- 
mediately to  prepare  the  modern  world.  On  the  contrary, 
it  appeared  at  first  as  a  renovation  and  a  recrudescence 
of  the  ideal  of  civilization  by  compulsion  from  the  Church, 
as  the  complete  reaction  of  the  thought  of  th^  ^liddle 
Ages,  which  suppresses  (vcrschlingt)  the  first  efforts  of 
a  free  and  secular  civilization  .  .  .  Whoever  studies 
the  history  of  religion  and  science  cannot  escape  the  im- 
pression that  it  is  the  great  struggle  for  freedom  of  the 
close  of  the  17th  and  of  the  i8th  centuries,  which  marks 
the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages."'*  This  conclusion  is  diametri- 
cally opposed  to  what  may  be  deduced  from  the  facts  and 
ideas  presented  by  Troeltsch  himself. 

7.  If  Troeltsch  has  such  a  confused  conception  of  the 
religious  principles  of  the  Reformation,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  he  presents  the  application  of  these  principles  to  soci- 
ety in  a  manner  no  less  confused.  Let  us  consider  the  re- 
lation of  the  Church  and  State. 

As  to  the  Church,  Troeltsch  contends  that  Protestantism 
holds  to  the  idea  of  an  "institute  of  salvation,  purely  divine 

8 


i8 


feMILE   DOUMERGUE 


and  founded  upon  authority".  Of  the  Catholic  conception 
Protestantism  rejects  only  (nur)  the  divine  ripht  of  the 
hierarchy,  superiority  of  the  hierarchy  over  the  State,  the 
sacraments  as  means  of  grace  in  the  possession  of  the 
Church  alone  and  bestowing  something  other  than  what 
faith  gives,  and  finally  tradition.  Nvr!  Only!  Everything 
is  brought  back  to  the  Bible,  everything  is  replaced  by  the 
Bible.  We  do  not  dispute  it;  we  accept  it  {concesso,  non 
dato).  Are  the  two  churches  the  same  Church?  Are  they 
not  contradictory  ? 

Troeltsch  contends  that,  with  Protestantism,  the  problem 
of  the  relation  between  the  State  and  the  Church  has  no 
place,  for  it  does  not  see  in  State  and  Church  two  distinct 
organizations,  but  two  difife:  cnt  functions  of  a  single  social 
body,  the  corpus  christianum.  "Only  (niir,  ^wvays  the 
same  formula!)  Protestantism  organizes  the  relation  be- 
tween these  two  func^^'ons  in  a  new  way :  no  more  suprem- 
acy of  the  hierarchy  over  the  civil  power!  The  State,  like 
the  Church,  is  subject  to  the  Bible  directly."  Once  more, 
we  do  not  dispute  it ;  we  accept  it.  Can  it  be  said  that  this 
is  still  (ton jours)  the  "ecclesiastical  civilization"  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  even  reinforced?  Is  a  Christian  society 
identical  with  an  ecclesiastical  society?  Why  call  this 
Christian  society  a  "theocracy",  when  one  is  immediately 
obliged  to  change  the  accepted  meaning  of  the  word  "the- 
ocracy"? "It  is  the  theocratic  idea,  ^nly  the  exercise  of 
theocracy  is  different.  It  is  no  longer  the  hierarchy  that 
commands  the  magistrate,  it  is  the  Bibliocracv."52  Is  there 
not  an  abyss  between  the  theocracy  of  the  Middle  Ages  and 
the  Bibliocracy  of  the  i6th  century? 

Finally  as  to  the  Stnte.  Protestantism  has  not  created  an 
independent  political  ethic  (einc  sclhstdndige  Ethik  der  Poli- 
tik).^^    It  has,  however,  freed  the  State  from  legal  submis- 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE    OR    CREATOR? 


19 


sion  to  the  hierarchy ;  it  has  affirmed  the  "definitive,  formal, 
fundamental  autonomy"  ( Verselbstdndigung)  of  the  State. 
And  yet  Protestantism  did  not  have  the  modern  idea  of  the 
State,  since  in  it  the  State  remains  a  religious  institution, 
concerned  with  morality,  with  Christian  duties.'*  Does  not 
the  word  ecclesiastical  seem  to  become,  little  by  little,  synon- 
omous  with  religious,  and  the  word  modern  with  non-relig- 
ious ?  In  such  sort  that  Protestantism  belongs  to  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  simi)ly  because  it  was  religious,  ^nd  that  it  did 
not  found  modern  times  simply  because  these  are  non-relig- 
ious? 

8.  We  are  reminded  that  the  conception  of  the  State  de- 
pends upon  the  conception  of  natural  rights  and  that  there 
are  "  ree  forms  (Gestaltung)  of  natural  rights,  that  of  the 
Middle  Ages, — in  which  Stoicism,  Aristotle  and  the  Bible 
are  mingled, — that  of  Lutheranism,  and  that  of  Calvinism. 
We  do  not  ask  what  are  these  three  forms  of  natural  rights, 
whicli  produce  three  entirely  different  States,  and  we  pass 
over  without  consideration  the  natural  rights  01  Lutheran- 
ism, which  is  conservative,  which  aims  at  territorial  absolut- 
ism and  pushes  this  absolutism  to  the  extreme." 

The  natural  rights  of  Calvinis.a  are  sufficiently  "conserva- 
tive". When  it  is  entirely  free,  it  favors  a  "moderate  aris- 
tocracy". But  "in  the  great  conflicts  with  the  Catholic  pow- 
ers,— persecutors  of  the  word  of  God  among  the  Huguenots, 
in  the  Netherlands,  in  Scotland,  and  in  England, — Calvin- 
ism has  developed  its  natural  rights  in  a  much  more  radical 
sense".  Troeltsch  speaks  of  the  right  of  resistance,  granted 
by  Calvinism  to  lower  magistrates  (which  is  correct),  even 
to  the  individual  (which  is  less  correct),  and  extending  in- 
clusively even  to  tyrannicide  (which  is  more  incorrect). 
And  here  there  appears  "an  ideal  of  the  State  specifically  Re- 
formed".    A  little  while  ago  there  was  no  specific  political 


20 


EMILE   DOUMERGUE 


ethic.  Now  there  is  a  specific  ideal  of  the  State,  at  least  for 
the  Reformed,  and  so  specific  that  this  ideal  comes  from  the 
new  ideal  of  the  Calvinistic  constitution  of  the  Church. 
"The  primitive  cell, — this  is  the  Presbyterio-Synodal  consti- 
tution of  the  Church,  with  its  representative  system."'®  In 
the  Church,  elections  and  colleges  of  elders ;  in  the  State,  elec- 
tions and  colleges  of  chosen  men.  .  .  .  Finally,  an  entirely 
logical  conclusion,  the  Calvinistic  natural  rights  accept  the 
idea  of  governmental  contract.     The  Covenants  appeared. 

Here,  then,  is  not  only  the  foundation  of  the  modern  State, 
its  autonomy,  but  its  whole  constitution,  go-ernmental  con- 
tract, representation,  college  of  representatives.  .  .  .  And  is 
not  this  the  modern  State:  No,  for  all  this  is  of  religious 
origin ;  all  this  remains  religious,  according  to  the  Calvinistic 
idea.  Then,  once  more,  whatever  is  religious  comes  from 
the  Middle  Ages.     Yes?     No? 

What  confusion  there  is  in  such  explanations  as  these: 
"The  trend  of  the  modern  world  to  democratic  government 
ought  not  to  be  referred  solely  (certainly,  no  one  maintains 
this)  and  directly  to  Calvinism.  The  mere  natural  right  of 
Rationalism,  devoid  of  religious  conception,  [why  is  mere 
natural  right  devoid  of  religious  conception,  if  religion  is 
natural  ?  and  by  what  authority  is  it  denied  that  religion  is 
natural?]  is  a  more  powerful  factor  in  this,  although  Calvin- 
ism has  a  very  great  part  (hcrvorragaidcn  Aiitcil)  in  the 
production  of   a  disposition   favorable  to  the  democratic 

spirit."" 

9.  We  have  at  length  reached  the  subject  of  natural 
rights.  Troeltsch  says :  "Here  we  find  ourselves,  according 
to  Jellinek,  in  the  presence  of  an  extremely  important  influ- 
ence of  Protestantism,  which  realized  a  fundamental  law, 
a  fundamental  ideal  of  the  modern  world."  And  yet 
Troeltsch  here  again  denies  this  honor  to  Protestantism. 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR    CREATOR? 


21 


"In  a  general  way,  the  exposition  of  Jellinek  constitutes  a 
truly  luminous  discover}'."  But  if  the  discovery  is  to  the 
honor  of  M.  Jellinek,  it  is  not  to  the  honor  of  Protestant- 
ism. Indeed,  after  having  stated  a  fact,  Jellinek  is  mistaken 
in  the  attribution  which  he  has  made  of  it.  For  "the  Puri- 
tanism, which,  according  to  his  view,  was  the  father  of  this 
idea  and  the  creator  of  these  formulas  of  right,  is  not  Cal- 
vinistic, — it  is  Anabaptist."     What  is  there  to  say? 

Troeltsch  changes  the  historical  formula :  "The  rights  of 
man",  to  this:  "The  rights  of  man  and  of  liberty  of  con- 
science", and  concerns  himself  only  with  the  second  part  of 
the  formula,  which  he  has  added.  He  observes  that  this  lib- 
erty of  conscience  was  proclaimed  in  Rhode  Island  by  Roger 
Williams,  who  went  over  to  the  Baptists,  and  in  Pennsylva- 
nia by  Penn,  who  was  a  Quaker.  He  concludes :  "The  fa- 
ther of  the  rights  of  man  is  then  not  Protestantism,  properly 
speaking,  but  the  hated  Baptists,  expelled  by  it."'* 

However,  he  hastens  to  correct  himself  in  part :  "The 
Anabaptism  which  proclaimed  the  rights  of  man,  is  not  Ana- 
baptism  properly  speaking,  but  a  modified  Anabaptism, 
which  has  abandoned  its  apolitie  [that  is,  the  absence  of  the 
idea  of  government,  anarchism]  ^  and  which  is  mixed  with 
Calvinism  in  many  respects  (in  manchcrlci  Vcrschmelsiing- 
cn),  an  Anabaptism  revivified  {ncnbclcb")  and  merged 
with  a  radical  Calvinism."'"  It  has  thus  created  a  civiliza- 
tion by  which  "the  State  and  the  religious  community  are 
completely  separated",  in  which,  however,  "the  State  keeps 
strict  watch  over  the  fundamental  Christian  principles  of 
morality  and  purity  of  life."*^*'  "This,  precisely,  is  the  design 
of  the  idea  of  the  civilization  of  the  Middle  Ages.""* 

It  is,  indeed,  a  pity  that  it  cannot  be  known  definitely  what 
belongs  to  Anabaptism  and  what  to  Calvinism ;  a  pity,  truly, 
that  it  should  be  a  question  of  an  Anabaptism,  which  is  not 


EMILE    DOUMERGUE 


Anabaptism,  but  an  Anabaptisni  transformed  by  Calvinism ; 
and  finally,  it  is  truly  a  pity  that  these  inextricable  confu- 
sions shcjuld  have  as  their  result  the  doing  honor  to  an 
Anabaptism  which  is  not  Anabaptism;  a  conception  of  the 
State,  which,  according  to  all  the  preceding  definitions,  is 
altogether  mediaeval,  and  which  affected  the  rupture  ^vith 
the  Middle  Ages! 

ID.  There  remains  the  paradox  of  Troeltsch  to  which 
this  conception  leads  up,  and  according  to  which  Puritanism 
did  not  come  from  Calvinism.  Upon  what  does  Troeltsch 
base  this  paradox  ?     His  discourse  does  not  say. 

We  may  be  permitted  to  oppose  Troeltsch  with  an  au- 
thority which  he  will  find  it  hard  to  refute,  that  of  his  own 
master,  Ritschl.  Ritschl  not  only  says,  but  expounds  what 
follows:  "For  Protestant  theologians,  it  is  certain  that  the 
Reformation  of  Luther  and  of  Zwingli  [Ritschl  does  not 
say:  and  of  Calvin],  in  principle  at  least,  transcended  the 
form  of  Christianity  which  was  consiiaited  at  the  end  of  the 
second  century,  and  which  is  especially  designated  as  the 
Catholic  form.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  evident  that  the 
motives  and  aims,  the  means  and  the  special  regulations  of 
Anabaptism.  all  continue  in  line  with  the  ^liddle  Age  and 
find  their  most  immediate  analogies  in  that  epoch.  As 
proof  of  this  assertion  I  go  back  to  the  suggestions  of  Bul- 
linger.  Whilst  the  .\nabaptists  announce  that  they  are  the 
onlv  true  commonwealth,  agreeable  to  God.  they  put  the 
accent  on  activity,  on  'the  manifest  amelioration'  of  life 
among  them,  which  was  as  little  pursued  (erstrebt)  in  the 
evangelical  Church  as  in  the  papal  Church.  Hence,  they 
reject  the  evangelical  doctrine  of  the  satisfaction  of  Christ, 
and  of  justification  by  faith,  to  wit.  that  man  becomes  right- 
eous before  God  by  faith  and  not  by  works.  They  reject, 
consequently    tlie  doctrine  of  a  law  that  cannot  be  kept, 


CALVIN  :     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR  ? 


23 


since  all  Scripture  commands  the  keeping  of  the  law.  In 
these  two  fundamental  principles  the  Anabaptists  are  in 
agreement  with  Catholicism.  Furthermore,  they  deduce 
from  the  obligation  to  love  the  conclusion  that  the  Christian 
should  possess  neither  property  nor  wealth,  since  love  has 
everything  in  common  with  the  brethren.  This  principle 
is  only  the  generalization  of  a  law  which  has  always  beei 
regarded  by  monachism  as  a  condition  of  Christian  per- 
fection."" 

Moreover,  the  statements  of  Ritschl  are  confirmed  by  a 
historian  as  little  Ritschlian  as  Lang,  who  has  made  the  study 
of  the  relation  between  Anabaptism  and  the  Reformation  a 
specialty.  The  Anabaptists,  says  he,  did  not  accept  justifi- 
cation by  faith;  they  made  a  new  law  of  Christian;  y:  "in 
this  respect  they  are  incontestably  on  the  platform  of  the 
Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages".  Only — and  this  is  the 
original  part  of  Lang's  studies — the  valuable,  the  serious 
elements  of  Anabaptism  (there  were  such),  instead  of  mak- 
ing their  appearance  in  the  17th  century,  in  opposition  to 
Calvinism  and  by  virtue  of  an  incomprehensible  transfor- 
mation, were  absorbed,  from  the  beginning  of  the  i6th 
century,  by  Calvinism  itself.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
Reformed,  without  sacrificing  the  Palladium  of  the  Refor- 
mation,— justification  by  faith, — allied  themselves  with  Ana- 
baptism through  their  idea  of  the  Church.  "The  eccles- 
iastical idea  of  Calvin  had  its  historic  cradle  not  so  much  in 
Geneva  as  in  Strassburg, — the  citadel  of  Anabaptism  on  the 
upper  Rhine.  To  what  extent  the  efforts  of  these  men  in- 
fluenced the  ecclesiastical  organization  of  Calvin,  by  means 
of  the  Church  of  Strassburg,  is  a  question  which  has  not 
yet  been  sufficiently  explored,  and  as  to  which  perfect  clear- 
ness has  not  been  reached."^^  We  do  not  here  try  to  lift 
this  veil.     But  even  if  Lang  may  have  exaggerated  his 


24 


EMILE   DOCMERGUE 


discovery  a  little,  still  it  is  evident  in  what  direction  the  truth 
must  be  sought. 

We  add,  for  good  measure,  the  conclusion  of  Loofs: 
"Does  not  Troeltsch  work  with  an  idealized  conception  of 
the  Renaissance  and  of  Anabaptism?  Certainly  the  Ana- 
baptism  of  the  1 6th  century  would  scarcely  have  been  capable 
of  creating  a  modern  world,  if  it  had  attained  to  hegemony! 
Not  only  the  events  of  Munster  prove  this.  The  attitude  of 
Anabaptism,  as  a  whole,  with  respect  to  asceticism  and  the 
State,  is,  originally,  much  more  mediseval  than  is  that  of 
primitive  Protestantism.  .  .  .  It  is  a  monstrosity  that  no 
amount  of  sympathy  for  Anabaptism  can  e.xcuse.  when 
Troeltsch,  in  unreflecting  forgetfulness  of  the  forms  of 
Anabaptism  of  the  17th  century,  represents  Anabaptism  as 
having  abandoned  its  apolitic  (i.  c,  its  anti-political  char- 
acter or  what  to-day  is  known  as  its  anarchy),  and  when, 
nevertheless,  he  accords  to  the  Anabaptism,  despised  by  the 
Reformers  and  cherished  by  modern  spiritualism,  the  honor 
of  having  been  one  of  the  two  principal  factors  of  the  mod- 
ern world.  He  who  attributes  this  to  Anabaptism, — that  is 
to  sa\-,  to  certain  ideas  derived  from  Anabaptists  and  else- 
where, formed  under  the  influence  of  long  persecutions,  the 
progress  of  civilization  in  England,  and  by  the  admixture 
of  Calvinistic  tradition — has  certainly  lost  all  right  to  op- 
pose the  new  Protestantism  to  the  old  as  a  child  raised  in 
a  strange  family,  which  betray"^  its  family  traits  only  to  the 
eyes  of  the  nearest  relatives. "•'* 

II.  We  might  stop  here.  This  then  is  the  thesis  of 
Ritschl  in  its  latest  evolution,  the  thesis  of  Ritschl  in  all 
its  force  and  all  its  consequences.  It  not  only  strikes  at 
Calvinism,  it  strikes  at  the  entire  Reformation;  and  Cal- 
vinism is  even  found  to  be  less  touc'^'^d  by  it  than  Lutheran- 
ism  itself;   a  just  recoi!  and  a  merited  punishment  for  so 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR    CREATOR? 


25 


many  chauvinistic  assaults.  The  evil  weapons  have  pierced 
the  hand  of  those  who  forged  them. 

Happily  for  Luther,  even  more  than  for  Calvin,  and  hap- 
pily for  the  Reformation,  the  thesis  of  Ritschl  set  forth  log- 
ically, brilliantly,  acclaimed  by  an  entire  congress  of  Ger- 
man theologians,  is  found  buried  in  its  very  triumph. 

Presented  in  its  most  scientific  form,  it  offers  no  resis- 
tance to  scientific  study.  Under  an  exact  analysis,  this  daz- 
zling thesis,  supported  by  wonderful  erudition,  becomes  hes- 
itating, obscure,  full  of  confusions  and  distinctions,  all  alike 
unjustified.  The  continual  concessions,  which  it  is  obliged 
to  make,  suffice  for  its  refutation,  and  after  all  it  remains 
an  immense  ambiguity;  in  sucii  sort  that,  after  having  re- 
futed Troeltscli.  step  by  step,  we  might  say  that  in  the  end 
we  are  in  accord  with  him.  Finally,  with  Troeltsch,  true 
Christianity  is  not  the  Christianity  of  the  Middle  Ages  (as 
to  which  he  is  certainly  riglit) ;  but  no  more  is  it  apostolic 
and  evangelical  Cliristianity  that  the  Middle  Ages  have  more 
or  less  afiirmed  or  contradicted. 

What  is  not  said  in  the  lecture  that  we  have  analyzed, 
but  is  implied  in  it,  is  explained  in  the  other  works  of 
Troeltsch.  VV^e  let  Loofs,  who  is  less  under  suspicion  in 
this  matter  than  we,  speak.  "Luther,  says  Troeltsch, 
stops  in  the  Middle  Ages  because  he  did  not  go  back  to 
Jesus  but  to  Paul,  who  changed  the  teaching  of  Jesus  to  a 
Gospel  of  supernatural  salvation ;  and  the  root  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  was  in  this  Gospel. "«'  Here  it  is,  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  is  Paul!  Loofs  goes  on  with  his  resume  of 
Troeltsch:  "Erasmus  appears  as  the  ideal  type  of  this  hu- 
manistic theology.  With  him  Christ  was  the  incarnation 
of  religion  that  is  the  same  everywhere.  It  is  He  who  began 
the  retreat  from  Pauhnism  toward  the  Semion  on  the 
Mount,  toward  the  simple  religion  of  the  faith  of  Jesus.     In 


26 


iMILE   DOUMERGl'E 


the  presence  of  Lutlier  he  was  not  only  the  moraUst  before 
the  rehgious  genius,  but  also  the  representative  of  the  mod- 
ern conception,  of  the  anti-supernatural  and  universal  re- 
ligion."«« 

After  this  all  is  clear.  From  the  moment  when  St.  Paul 
is  the  Middle  Ages,  and  Erasmus  is  the  modern  world,  it  is 
evident  that  the  Reformation,  which  fought  Erasmus  (and 
who  fought  him  more  than  Luther?),  and  which  preached 
St.  Paul  (and  who  preached  him  more  than  Calvin?),  was 
against  the  modern  world  and  for  the  Middle  Ages.  But 
there  was  no  reason  for  proving  this  in  a  great  number  of 
learned  pages.  It  would  suffice  to  say  it:  we  should  have 
agreed  at  once,  a  priori. 

What  is  perhaps  more  curious,  is  that  we  find  ourselves 
also  almost  in  accord  as  to  the  two  reflections  with  which 
Troeltsch  resumes  his  study.  Protestantism,  says  he,  was 
above  all  a  religion ;  it  wished  to  indicate  "a  new  means", 
faith  (sola  fides),  for  attaining  the  old  end,  salvation:  "the 
end  was  the  same,  the  path  was  radically  new".®^  And 
once  again,  this  is  evident.  Who  could  contradict  this? 
Not  we.  Religions,  indeed,  could  scarcely  be  dififeren- 
tir.ted  by  their  aim.  All,  even  fetish  religions,  seek  to  as- 
sure their  adherents  of  salvation.  To  say  that  two  religions 
seek  salvation  by  "radically  different"  means,  is  to  say  that 
they  are  "radically  different".  And  two  radically  different 
religions  give  birth  to  two  radically  different  civilizations. 
There  is  then  an  abyss  between  Catholicism  (as  Catholi- 
cism) and  Protestantism;  between  the  culture  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  Protestant  culture. 

Troeltsch  afterwards  admits  that  modern  times  have 
made  the  means  the  end.  They  announced  that  they  had 
the  end  when  they  had  the  means,  according  to  Les- 
sing's  saying,  the  search  for  truth  is  of  more  value  than  the 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE  OR   CREATOR? 


2^ 


truth.  The  idea  of  faith  has  everywhere  triumphed  over 
the  content  of  faith."*  In  this  sense  it  is  very  evident  that 
the  modern  times  do  not  come  from  the  Reformation ;  that 
they  come  from  Semler,  from  Lessing,  from  Rationalism, 
mystical  or  not  mystical,  from  the  Renaissance  and  from 
Anabaptism,  in  so  far  as  ihese  are  contrary  to  the  Reforma- 
tion and  evangelical  Christianity.  But  once  more,  who  de- 
nies this?  In  any  event,  not  we, — above  all,  not  we.  This 
is  our  favorite  thesis. 

Hence  nothing  of  all  this  is  the  true  question.  This  is 
the  tnie  question:  Does  what  is  best  in  the  modern  times 
come  from  this  mystical  Rationalism  or  from  the  Reforma- 
tion? And  above  all,  the  true  question  is  this:  Has  mod- 
ern culture  in  itself,  apart  from  the  principles  of  the  Refor- 
mation, the  future,  the  certainty  of  its  continuance,  of  its 
perpetual  triumph?  Troeltsch  doubts  this.  And  he  has 
written  these  very  significant  words :  "Modem  culture  is  in 
every  instance  characterized  by  a  prodigious  diffusion  and 
intensity  of  the  idea  of  liberty  and  personality.  This  is 
the  best  thing  about  this  culture.  The  idpa  is  spontaneously 
(  ?)  developed  in  all  the  domains  of  life,  thanks  to  a  partic- 
ular conjunction  of  circumstances,  and  has  received  from 
Protestantism  only  (nur)  a  metaphysico-religious  basis,  very 
strong,  but  in  itself  independent.  The  point  is  to  know  if 
this  conjunction  of  circumstances,  if  this  fecundity  which  it 
has  obtained  for  the  idea  of  liberty  w;Il  be  maintained.  It 
is  hard  to  think  so — yet  I  think  I  can  conclude — at  least  this 
is  my  particular  conclusion :  let  us  keep  the  metaphysico- 
religious  principle  of  liberty.  Otherwise  there  might  be  an 
end  of  liberty  and  of  personality  at  the  moment  when  we 
vaunted  ourselves  most  of  their  progress"."^  Truly,  what 
should  we  add? 


28 


fe.VIII.K    DOI'MKKGIE 


III.      MAX   WEBER. 

Our  readers  must  pardon  us:  in  putting  Troeltsch  after 
Ritschl.  we  have  neglected  a  link  of  the  chain,  and  certainly 
not  the  least  remarkable  one :  Max  Weber,  and  his  study  on 
"Protestant  Ethics  and  the  Spirit  of  Capitalism",  a  study 
which  appeared  in  i<>04  and  1<K>3'"  This  study  has  been 
much  less  spoken  of  than  Troeltsch's  address.  And  yet, 
it  seems  to  us  almost  more  worthy  of  attention.  We  have 
rarely  met  with  pages  richer  and  more  suggestive  tlian  these 
two  articles  of  164  jjages,  cram  full  of  erudition  and  of 
ideas.  Taking  them  up  after  the  preceding  section,  we  can 
be  I)rief  and  yet.  we  hope,  show  their  true  worth. 

Troeltsch  and  Weber  are  Professors  in  Heidellwrg  and 
appear  almost  as  collaborators.  Troeltsch  cites  with  praise 
the  works  of  Weber  once.  Weber  cites  many  times  the 
works  of  Troeltsch  that  have  appeared,  and  that  are  to  ap- 
pear. One  !night  then  almost  speak  of  a  Heidelberg 
school.  At  least,  Troeltsch  would  not  dispute  the  authority 
of  Weber. 

Weber  and  Troeltsch  treat  of  the  same  subject  in  the 
same  general  spirit.  Only  Weber  has  a  more  special,  a 
more  central  point  of  view.  He  embraces  a  little  le'^s;  he 
g'-asps  much  more.  Now,  there  are  singular  differences  be- 
tween these  Heidelberg  colleagues,  in  the  midst  of  a  mass 
of  analogies;  and  if  the  principles  and  the  facts  seem  the 
same  with  both,  the  conclusions  are  entirely  different. 

Weber  like  Troeltsch  makes  a  distinction  in  Protestant- 
ism between  Lutheranism  and  Calvinism,  and  accords  to 
Calvinism  a  much  higher  social  influence  than  to  Luther- 
anism. On  this  point,  the  thesis  of  Ritschl  and  of  Luth- 
eran chauvinism  may  be  considered  definitely  overthrown. 
Troeltsch  borrowed  from  Weber  his  conception  of  intra- 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


29 


mundane  (imicr-n'cUlich)  asceticism,  of  Protestant  asceti- 
cism.    And  indeed  this  is  Weber's  central  idea. 

But  there  is  in  Troeltsch  an  idea  that  is  not  found  in 
VVef)er,  tlie  idea  that  Protestantism  continues  the  culture  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  is  a  part  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  neither 
opens  nor  begins  modern  times,  is  not  a  part  of  modern 
times.  Now  it  is  precisely  this  idea  that  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  tlie  general  public  to  Troeltsch's  lecture,  and  gave  it 
its  vogiie ;  yet  not  only  is  it  absent  from  Welier's  article, — 
his  article  in  reality  refutes  it.  This  is  the  extremely  inter- 
esting and  imijortant  fact  that  should  be  stated. 

Welier  sums  up  modem  culture  in  the  word,  "capitalism". 
"The  spirit  of  capitalism  '  is  the  modern  spirit.  Then,  he 
sums  up  the  moral,  practical  and  social  tendency  of  Protest- 
antism in  the  word,  "asceticism" ;  but  a  very  special  asceti- 
cism, which  must  always  l)e  accompanied  by  two  epithets: 
Protestant  and  intra-mundane.  And  finally  Weber's  spe- 
cial thesis  is  that  this  Protestant  asceticism  of  the  i6th  cen- 
tury has  been  one  of  the  great  factors  of  the  capitalistic  or 
modern  spirit. 

This  is  how  he  expresses  himself :  "The  spirit  of  labor", 
of  "progress",  or  whatever  you  wish  to  call  it,  to  which  one 
is  inclined  to  attribute  the  awakening  of  Protestantism,  must 
not.  as  it  is  the  habit  nowadavi  to  do,  be  taken  In  a  Ration- 
alistic sense  (atifkldrcrisclt).  The  old  Protestantism  of 
Luther,  Calvin,  Knox,  Voet,  concerned  itself  little  with  what 
to-day  is  called  "progress".  If,  then,  there  is  an  intimate 
kinship  between  the  old  Protestant  spirit  and  modern  capi- 
talistic culture,  we  must  try  to  find  this  relationship,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  not  in  a  pretended  "delight  in  the  world"  (joie 
dii  monde),  more  or  less  materialistic,  or  at  least  anti-ascetic, 
but  rather  in  purely  religious  principles.  Montsquieu  (Es- 
prit des  Lois,  xx,  7)  says  of  the  English:   "They  are  the 


30 


6mile  doumergue 


people  of  the  world  who  have  best  knowti  how  to  excel  at 
the  same  time  in  three  great  things:  religion,  commerce 
and  liberty".  Did  their  superiority  in  the  domain  of  indus- 
try and  their  capacity  for  appropriating  liberal  political  in- 
stitutions, of  which  we  shall  speak  elsewhere,  depend  on 
the  religious  ideas  which  are  a  matter  of  record,  according 
to  Montesquieu?  Such  is  the  question  to  which  Weber 
answers  Yes,  with  a  knowledge  that  can  be  called  positive, 
avoiding  equally  Rationalism  (Aufkldnnig)  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  Middle  Ages  on  the  other.  "The  modern  concep- 
tion, indicated  by  the  expression,  'spirit  of  capitalism', 
would  have  bee;i  proscribed  in  antiquity  as  well  as  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  as  sordid  avarice  and  mentality  without  dig- 
nity"."' In  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the  general  opinion 
that  the  merchant  could  not  please  God  (Deo  placere  non 
potest)  ;  that  there  was  something  shameful  (pudendum) 
in  a  mercantile  condition.  And  it  was  necessary  to  break 
away  from  this  "tradition"  of  antiquity  and  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  order  to  make  way  for  modern  times. 

Who  broke  with  this  tradition?  The  Protestantism  of 
the  1 6th  century ;  the  Protestantism  and  not  the  Rationalism. 
Those  who  are  tempted  to  believe  that  the  "capitalistic 
spirit"  is  a  product  of  Rationalism,  and  that  Protestantism 
intervenes  only  so  far  as  it  is  a  forerunner  of  Rationalism, 
Weber  confronts  simply  with  the  facts.^^ 

Protestantism  has  worked  through  its  religious  concep- 
tions, properly  so-called,  in  the  list  of  which  Weber  puts 
the  great  idea  of  vocation.  The  Latin-Catholic  peoples 
have  no  word,  any  more  than  has  classical  antiquity,  to  ex- 
press this  idea  of  vocation  (Berxif),  in  the  sense  or  social 
condition,  life  in  a  determined  sphere.  On  the  other  hand 
this  word  exists  among  all  Protestant  peoples.''^  "And  as 
the  significance  of  the  word  is  new,  so  also  is  the  idea;  it  is 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE    OR    CREATOR? 


31 


a  product  of  the  Reformation.  No  doubt,  already  in  the 
Middle  Ages  certain  attempts  at  appraising  daily  toil  in  this 
way  are  found.  But  what  is  entirely  new  is  this:  the  es- 
teeming the  accomplishment  of  duty,  in  the  earthly  voca- 
tion, as  the  ideal  of  personal  morality.  This  it  is  that  has 
logically  produced  the  view  of  the  religious  importance 
of  the  daily  task  i  this  world  an  1  which  has  given  birth 
to  the  idea  of  voca  on  Tims,  tliat  which  finds  its  expres- 
sion in  this  idea  of  jcation  is  t'le  central  dogma  of  all  the 
old  Protestant  denominations,  which  rejects  the  distinction 
between  the  precepts  and  the  counsels  in  Christian  ethics, 
and  indicates,  as  the  only  way  of  leading  a  life  agreeable  to 
God.  not  the  excelling  of  worldly  morality  by  monastic  ascet- 
icism, but  the  being  content  merely  with  the  fulfilment  of 
one's  duties  in  the  world,  as  the  situation  of  each  requires, 
that  is  to  say,  fulfilling  I,is  vocation. "'^^ 

"That  this  moral  character  of  'vocation'  is  one  of  the 
merits  of  the  Reformation,  the  consequences  of  which  have 
been  most  important,  and  that  it  is  specially  due  to  Luther, 
is  incontestable  and  of  common  notoriety.""  However,  if 
Luther  began,  he  did  not  continue.  Luther  became  more 
and  more  a  traditionalist.^^  "He  did  not  discover  the  new 
theoretical  basis  on  which  the  relation  between  vocation  and 
religious  principles  rests."'''  "So  the  simple  idea  of  voca- 
tion, in  a  Lutheran  sense,  remained  (in  the  domain  in  which 
we  are),  of  problematical  importance."''* 

But  Calvinism  came.  "Calvinism,  historically,  is  one  of 
the  incontestible  factors  of  the  'capitalistic  spirit'."''"  And 
it  is  Calvinism  that  has  been  the  most  opposed  to  the 
Middle  Ages.  "It  is  with  reason  that  Catholicism  has  re- 
garded Calvinism,  from  its  origin  until  to-day,  as  its  real 
enemy."*"    Luther  created  Protestantism;  Calvin  saved  it. 

It  is  seen  how  the  article  of  Weber  excludes  the  thesis 


32 


EMILE    DOUMERGUE 


of  Troeltsch,  and  how  it  proves  that  the  Reformation 
broke  with  the  Micklle  Ages,  and  inaugurated  modern 
times.  Undoubtedly,  in  Weber's  work,  aside  from  the  fun- 
damental thesis,  there  are  points  upon  which  we  are  not 
in  agreement  with  the  author.    But  that  matters  little  here. 

We  confine  ourselves  to  formulating  two  regrets.  The 
first  is  that  Weber  has  called  the  "spirit"  with  which  the 
Reformation  has  inspired  modern  culture,  "the  capitalistic 
spirit."  Of  course,  I  know  Weber's  reservations.  I  know 
that  he  is  not  concerned  with  capitalism,  but  with  its  "spir- 
it", with  that  which  has  been  its  quality,  to  wit.  a  power 
of  incessant  toil  systematically  disciplined.  This  spirit, 
which  does  not  urge  on  to  pleasure,  but  to  production,  is  so 
contrary  to  human  nature  that  it  could  only  arise  through 
the  influence  of  an  extremely  efficacious  spiritual  power.  .  .  . 
However,  there  are  two  ideas  in  the  word  "capitalism",  as  in 
all  the  words  in  ism,  one  good  and  another  evil,  the  exag- 
geration of  the  good,  which,  by  its  exaggeration,  makes  a 
false  and  dangerous  idea  out  of  the  good  idea.  But  I  know 
also  how  dangerous  it  is  to  designate  by  the  same  word 
two  things  so  different.  The  words  in  is)n  have  two  senses : 
still,  it  is  generally  the  contemptuous  sense  that  is  intended, 
when  the  word  is  spoken.  And  we  can  see  this  in  the  abuse 
which  the  adversaries  of  Protestantism  could  make  of  this 
word  "capitalism".  They  could  say:  Protestantism  is  the 
father  of  capitalism,  of  that  capitalism  which  is  so  hor- 
rible, so  nefarious,  so  anti-Christian,  so  hateful,  etc.  Fur- 
ther, all  the  precautions  that  Calvin  took  against  the  evil 
capitalism,  the  idea  of  which  is  wholly  contrary  to  Cal- 
vinism, should  be  noted.  It  is  not  sufficient,  in  our  opinion, 
to  have  reiterated  that  Calvinism  itself  is  shown  many  times 
to  be  in  disagreement  with  Calvin.*^ 

Not  less  regrettable  is  the  use  of  the  word  "asceticism". 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR    CREATOR? 


33 


All  the  abuse  that  Ritschl  has  made  of  it  was  known,  as 
well  as  that  which  Troeltsch  was  going  to  make.  Here, 
again,  I  am  aware  that  with  Weber  Protestant  "asceticism" 
is  contrary  to  Catholic  "asceticism".  If  there  are  points  of 
resemblance,  Weber  gives  the  following  excellent  reason  for 
this:  "All  asceticism  that  arises  out  of  Biblical  soil  ought 
to  have,  necessarily,  certain  common  traits".*^  j^gj.  g^ 
So  much  the  more  since,  if  Weber,  like  Troeltsch,  does  not 
broach  the  question,  essential  nevertheless,  of  the  evangeli- 
cal teaching  on  pretended  asceticism,  he  allows  his  theologi- 
cal idea,  which  is  the  idea  of  the  modern  school  of  theology 
and  of  Troeltsch,  to  emerge,  namely,  that  the  Middle  Ages 
have  their  origin  in  St.  Paul  and  in  the  New  Testament. 
"The  apostolical  epoch,  which  speaks  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  especially  in  Paul,  because  of  the  eschatological 
expectations,  has  either  an  indifferent  or  an  essentially  tradi- 
tionalistic  attitude  with  respect  to  this  life  as  a  vocation."*' 
In  this  way  we  might  say,  on  the  one  hand,  that  what  Pro- 
testant asceticism  has  in  common  with  the  asceticism  of  the 
Middle  Ages  comes  from  St.  Paul  and  the  Gospels :  and  on 
the  other  hand,  that  what  does  not  come  from  St.  Paul  ana 
the  Gospels  is  contrary  to  the  asceticism  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Indeed,  instead  of  being  external,  this  asceticism  is  inter- 
nal ;  instead  of  fleeing  from  the  world,  it  seeks  it  out.  Fur- 
ther, according  to  Weber,  Protestant  asceticism  impels  to 
the  acquisition  of  this  world's  goods,  makes  this  acquisi- 
tion lawful, — shall  we  say,  the  will  of  God?  It  only  combats 
the  temptations  attached  to  riches  ...  not  mortification 
(nicitt  Kasteinng),  but  the  use  of  possessions  for  neces- 
sary and  practically  useful  purposts,  is  its  ideal.  The  idea 
to  which  this  asceticism  tends,  logically  and  in  fact,  is  that 
of  "comfort"." 

Then  we  ask:  why  take  a  single  word  to  designate  con- 


34 


iMILE   DOUMERGUE 


trary  things?     Why  take  the  word  asceticism  in  a  e 

opposed  to  that  which  ecclesiastical  history  and  or.  .ry 
usage  give  it?  Is  there  not  risk  of  provoking  misunder- 
standings and  equivocations? 

To  sum  up,  the  prodigious  and  admirable  work  of  Max 
Weber  results  in  the  anticipated  correction  of  Troeltsch's 
paradox,  and  we  should  accept  willingly  Weber's  conclusion, 
were  it  not  for  two  words  that  are  in  danger  of  being  taken 
in  a  sense  in  which  Weber  does  not  take  them. 

IV.       CALVIN. 

We  now  come  to  our  Reformer.  If  we  had  to  do  only 
with  Ritschl  and  his  three  faithful  disciples,  we  could  say: 
since  Calvin  is  of  all  the  Reformers  the  one  whom  you  re- 
gard as  the  least  a  Reformer,  the  most  mediieval.by  showing 
how  far  Calvin  broke  with  the  Middle  Ages,  w^  have  proved 
a  fortiori  how  the  whole  Reformation  was  reformative. 
But,  with  respect  to  Troeltsch.  we  cannot  use  this  language. 
Troeltsch,  in  fact,  with  his  knowledge  independent  of  Lu- 
theran chauvinism,  has  made  it  apparent  that  the  accusa- 
tions of  Ritschl  hit  Luther  even  harder  than  Calvin.  In 
this.  Troeltsch  has  come  back  to  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
the  Catholics  (and  in  this  they  may  be  believed),  who  have 
recognized  in  Calvin  their  most  dangerous  adversary,  be- 
cause he  was  the  most  logical  Reformer. 

But,  in  reality,  the  disagreement  between  Ritschl  and 
Troeltsch  little  concerns  us.  To  our  mind  there  is  no  con- 
tradiction between  Luther  and  Calvin.  Coming  after  Lu- 
ther, Calvin  has  profited  by  this,  and  has  carried  on  the 
Protestant  results  of  all  Protestantism.  It  suffices  us  to 
concern  ourselves  with  Calvin ;  by  justifying  Calvin  we  shall 
justify  Luther  and  the  entire  Reformation.  I  add  that  we 
shall  treat  only  of  a  single  point  of  the  Calvinistic  concep- 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE    OR    CREATOR? 


35 


tioii,  the  pretended  asceticism  of  Calvin.  Nothing  but  his 
asceticism ;  because  it  is  upon  this  that  Ritschl  and  the  whole 
Ritschlian  school  build  their  theories.  And  we  confine  our- 
selves to  this  point,  because  even  with  this  restriction,  the 
subject  in  its  entirety  is  still  too  large  for  full  treatment 
here. 

I.  "Self-denial"  is  the  means  of  attaining  the  end  of  hu- 
man life.  The  difference  between  paganism  and  C  .ristian- 
ity  is  shown  in  this.  Paganism  preaches  the  autonomy  and 
pride  of  men.  Cliristianity  preaches  heteronomy,*'  and 
humility.  "Christian  philosophy  bids  reason  withdraw  it- 
self in  order  that  it  may  give  ])lace  to  the  Holy  Sririt  and 
be  subject  to  His  guidance,  so  that  the  man  no  longer  lives 
of  himself,  but  has  Christ  living  and  reigning  in  him."*" 
Saint  Paul  said :  "It  is  not  I  that  live,  it  is  Christ  that  liveth 
in  me";  and  in  a  highly  rhetorical  unfolding  of  this  theme 
Calvin  repeats :  "We  are  not  our  own  ...  we  are  not  our 
own    .    .    .    we  are  the  Lord's    ...    we  are  the  Lord's 

"87 

And  yet  it  is  said:  this  self-denial  is  asceticism, — the 
l)cginning,  the  root  of  asceticism.  But  he  is  certainly  mis- 
taken who  holds  to  appearances  and  sees  in  Calvinistic  re- 
nunciation only  a  negative  meaning.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  positive,  essentially  and  doubly  positive ;  denying  oneself 
means  the  giving  oneself  to  men  and  to  God.  Calvin  says 
this  in  so  many  words :  "This  self-denial,**  which  Christ  re- 
quires so  carefully  of  all  His  disciples,  has  respect  partly  to 
men  and  partly  to  God".*" 

Men.  The  particularly  difficult  thing  is  to  seek  the  good 
of  our  neighbor;  and  only  self-denial  removes  this  difficul- 
ty: "All  that  wc  have  received  of  the  Lord  has  been  granted 
us  on  this  condition,  that  we  use  it  for  the  common  welfare 
of  the  Church  .  .  .  The  lawful  use  of  this  grace  is  a  loving 


3f' 


feMILE    DOUMERGUE 


and  liberal  sharing  of  it  with  our  neighbors  ...  no  mem- 
ber has  his  powers  for  himself,  and  he  does  not  apply  them 
to  his  own  particular  use,  but  for  the  profit  of  others  .  .  . 
the  common  l^enefit  of  the  Church.""**  Thus  this  "self-de- 
nial" is  the  basis  of  solidarity  (but  we  must  forego  here  to 
indicate  the  very  beautiful  development  given  by  Calvin  to 
this  idea). 

God.  Self-denial  for  the  sake  of  God  will  be  in  its  turn 
the  basis  of  integrity  and  tranquillity  of  spirit.  "Whoever 
rests  in  the  divine  blessing,  will  not  by  wicked  and  crafty 
means  seek  any  of  those  things  that  men  seek  with  mad 
desire.  And  he  will  have  a  solace  in  which  he  can  better 
satisfy  himself  than  in  all  the  riches  of  the  world  .  .  ., 
he  will  account  all  things  to  be  ordered  of  God,  as  is  exped- 
ient for  his  salvation.""*  Thus  self-denial  is  the  great 
means  of  Christian  activity  in  the  world,  for  men.  We  see 
how  far  words  must  be  distrusted. 

2.  It  is  true  that  with  Calvin  self-denial  is  a  manner  of 
"bearing  his  cross",  and  that  this  cross  is  frequently  men- 
tioned. But  here  again  it  is  not  at  all  a  matter  of  suffering 
for  the  sake  of  suffering,  and  of  a  seeking  after  suffering. 
Calvin  writes  the  very  opposite  of  this  in  one  of  the  nume- 
rous passages  in  which  he  has  branded  the  ascetic  folly  of 
Stoics,  fakirs  .ind  monks.  "To  bear  the  cross  patiently  is 
not  to  be  altogether  stolid,  and  to  feel  no  grief,  like  the  Stoic 
philosophers  .  .  .  There  are  even  among  Christians  fellow 
creatures  who  think  that  it  is  vicious  not  only  to  groan  and 
weep  but  also  to  be  sad  and  anxious.  These  wild  opinions 
proceed  from  idle  natures  .  .  .  For  our  part  we  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  hard  and  rigorous  philosophy."®" 
And  again:  "If  we  were  like  a  block  of  wood  or  a  stone, 
there  would  be  no  virtue  in  us  .  .  .  the  brute  beasts  some- 
times have  no  feeling,  but  this  does  not  make  them  virtu- 


CALVIN  :     EPIGONE    OR    CREATOR  ? 


37 


ous."''^  And  yet  again :  "No  one  need  be  astonished  if  we 
esteem  the  tears  and  groans  of  David  more  than  the  hard- 
ness and  stolidity  of  many,  a  hardness  and  stolidity  which 
many  praise  as  the  highest  virtue."** 

3.  In  addition  to  self-denial,  another  means  of  attain- 
ing the  end  of  the  Christian  life  is  meditation  on  the  life  to 
come.  And  here,  in  his  great  fervor,  Calvin  makes  use  of 
some  of  those  Tong  expressions,  to  which  he  is  addicted. 
He  is  speaking  of  contemning  the  present  life.  For  his  anti- 
aesthetic  temperament  is  concerned  only  with  the  "two  ex- 
tremes", "either  the  earth  must  be  despised  by  us,  or  else 
it  enslaves  us  by  an  intemperate  love  of  it."®' 

But,  once  again,  we  must  not  forget  the  vehement  forms 
of  speech  affected  by  Calvin.  And  the  proof  is  that  if  he 
says  here:  there  is  no  mean  between  the  two  extremes; 
elsewhere  he  declares  that  "there  is  as  much  danger  of  fall- 
ing into  one  extreme  as  the  other".»«  We  should,  then,  avoid 
both.  And  after  having  given  the  reasons  for  despising 
this  earth  and  this  life,  Calvin  makes  haste  to  inform  us  that 
we  must  not  put  a  wrong  construction  on  his  words  and 
come  to  a  "hatred  of  the  present  life  or  ingratitude  toward 
God".  On  the  contrary,  this  life  is  among  "the  blessings 
of  God,  which  are  not  to  be  contemned"."^  And  he  shows 
its  advantages  and  benefits.  God  reveals  Himself  here  as 
our  Father,  in  the  smallest  details ;  we  are  here  preparing 
for  the  glory  of  His  kingdom,  etc.  Furthermore,  the  earthly 
life  seems  despicable  to  us  only  in  conv^"son  with  the 
heavenly  life.®* 

4.  However,  it  must  be  observed  that  these  utterances 
are  only  preliminar)'.  Could  one  speak  of  the  monastic  as- 
ceticism of  Calvin  even  if  these  prefatory  statements  were 
all?     Certainly  not. 

Calvin  speaks  to  us  "of  the  right  use  of  earthly  bless- 


38 


feMILE   DOUMERGUE 


ings".  It  is  here  that  we  find  the  true  nature  of  his  asceti- 
cism. Let  us  read  attentively.  We  do  not  have  to  abstain 
from  this  world's  goods,  Calvin  declares,  not  even  from 
those  "which  seem  more  conducive  to  pleasure  (oblecta- 
tioni)  than  to  our  necessities".  On  the  contrary,  we  are  to 
use  them  "as  well  for  our  needs  as  for  our  delectation 
(oblectamentuin)".^°  Such  is  the  exordium  of  the  alleged 
panegyric  on  monastic  asceticism. 

Some  good  persons  among  the  "Saints"  have  permitted 
man  to  use  this  world's  goods  only  in  so  far  as  necessity 
demands.  Undoubtedly,  these  Saints  were  well  intentioned ; 
they  were  none  the  less  mistaken ;  "they  practiced  a  too  great 
rigor" ;  they  were  more  "strict"  than  God's  word.  And  this 
overstrictness  is  "very  dangerous".  Yet  it  is  not  necessary  to 
believe  them  and  to  imagine  that  it  is  unlawful  "to  add  any- 
thing to  the  brown  bread  and  water".'""  This  is  monastic 
asceticism   and — its  formal  condemnation. 

There  follows  a  charming  passage  of  good  sense,  as  real- 
istic as  poetic:  "If  we  consider  for  what  purpose  God  cre- 
ated food,  we  shall  find  that  He  wished  to  provide  not  only 
for  our  necessity,  but  also  for  our  pleasure  and  recreation 
(oblcctaiitcuto  qiioqiic  ac  hilaritati).  So  as  to  raiment,  be- 
side necessity.  He  has  regard  to  that  which  is  proper  and 
becoming  (decorum  ct  honestas).  As  to  herbs,  trees,  and 
fruits,  beside  their  various  useful  qualities.  He  has  enhanced 
them  by  their  beauty  {aspcctus  gratia),  and  gives  us  added 
pleasure  in  their  perfume  (jucunditas  odoris).  If  this  were 
not  so.  the  prophet  would  not  have  numbered  among  the 
divine  blessings  the  wine  that  rejoiceth  man's  heart  and  oil 
that  maketh  his  face  to  shine  .  .  .  The  good  qualities  that  all 
things  have  by  nature  (naturalcs  rerttm  dotes)  show  us  how 
we  ought  to  enjoy  them  ...  Do  we  think  that,  our  Lord 
having   given   sucli   beauty   to   the   flowers   which   present 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


39 


themselves  to  the  sight  {quae  ultro  in  oculos  incurrerct),  it 
is  not  lawful  to  be  touched  with  pleasure  in  seeing  them? 
Do  we  think  that  He  has  given  them  so  sweet  an  odor 
(tantain  odoris  suavitatcui)  and  does  not  wish  that  man 
should  delight  to  smell  them?  .  .  .  Have  done  then  with 
that  inhuman  philosophy,  which  .  .  .  not  only  maliciously 
(malignd)  deprives  us  of  the  lawful  fruit  of  the  divine  be- 
neficence, but  also  cannot  be  realized  without  depriving  man 
of  all  sentiment,  and  making  him  like  a  block  of  wood."*"* 

And  Calvin  preached  this  anti-asceticism  from  his  pulpit 
after  having  recommended  it  in  his  dogmatics.  "It  is  said 
in  Ps.  civ.,  that  God  has  not  only  given  man  bread  and 
water  for  the  necessity  of  life,  but  that  He  added  as  well 
wine  to  comfort  and  rejoice  his  heart  ...  He  might  easily 
have  made  the  corn  grow  for  our  nourishment  without  any 
preceding  bloom.  He  might  easily  have  made  fruits  and 
trees  without  leaves  and  blossoms.  We  see  that  our  Lord 
wills  that  we  should  rejoice  through  all  our  senses  .  .  .  "'"^ 
"The  world  was  created  for  us,  and  our  God  wills  not  that 
we  should  be  deprived  of  anything  whatever."'*" 

5.  Self-denial  is  a  form  of  asceticism;  asceticism  is  a 
form  of  pessimism.  But  we  do  not  really  think  it  necessary 
to  enter  into  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  reasons  by  which 
the  attempt  is  made  to  prove,  in  spite  of  everything,  that 
Calvin  taught  monastic  pess'mism.  Moreover,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  define  pessimism  and  the  different  kinds  of 
pessimism.  This  wo  d  take  time  and  space.  If  one  were 
to  speak  of  pessimism  without  particularizing,  is  there  not 
a  Biblical,  Christian  pessimism, — an  evangelical  pessimism 
even  ?  And  does  this  kind  of  pessimism  prevent  Christian- 
ity from  being  a  doctrine  of  optimism, — a  doctrine  of  the 
greatest,  the  only  true  optimism  that  the  world  has  known  ? 

Leaving  to  our  readers  the  task  of  combining  them,  we 


40 


EMILE   DOUMERGUE 


cite  some  of  the  texts  at  raiuloni.  "The  world  lieth  under 
the  power  of  the  evil  one"  (i  John  v.  19) ;  "The  wages  of 
sin  is  death"  (Rom.  vi.  23);  "The  sorrow  of  the  world 
worketh  death"  (i  Cor.  vii.  10).  .  .  .  And,  indeed,  must 
we  not  go  higher  than  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  ?  Are  not  the 
Beatitudes  a  strange  cry  of  mingled  pessimism  and  optim- 
ism? "Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit;  blessed  are  they  that 
mourn;  blessed  are  they  that  hunger  ?.d  thirst  after  right- 
eousness ;  blessed  are  they  that  are  persecuted  for  righteous- 
ness sake"  (Matt.  v.  3,  4,  6,  10). 

Then,  technical  terms  are  resorted  to,  scholastic  discus- 
sions, and  all  that  theological  art  which  consists  in  con- 
templating the  trees  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  see  the  forest. 
We  are  told  that  Calvin's  pessimism  has  all  the  character- 
istics of  real  pessimism;  it  is  eschatological,  negative  and 
ascetic  .   .   .   The  pessimism  of  Calvin  is  all  that! 

We  limit  ourselves  to  the  consideration  for  a  moment  of 
the  first  of  these  sinister  words :  eschatological.  It  is  one  of 
the  great  words  of  present-day  theology.  What  does  it  mean  ? 
Does  it  mean  that  the  supreme  good  e.xists  only  in  the  other 
life?'"*  Or,  rather,  that  the  felicity  of  salvation  begins  to 
be  our  heritage  in  this  life,  but  it  is  complete  only  in  the 
other  life?  Whatever  is  thought  of  the  first  statement,  it 
is  the  second  thai  Calvin  sets  forth ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  see 
in  the  second  anything  else  than  an  evident  truth  for  every 
Christian. 

Calvin  writes:  "As  to  us,  already  in  this  earthly  pil- 
grimage (in  hac  quoque  terrena  peregrinatione)  we  know 
what  is  the  only  and  perfect  felicity  (nobis  unica  et  perfecta 
felicitas  in  hac  quoque  terrena  peregrinatione  nota  est), 
but  in  such  sort  that  it  inflames  [more  exactly :  this  felicity, 
which  inflames]  our  hearts  daily  more  and  more  with  desire 
for  it  (sui  desidcrio),  until  we  shall  be  satisfied  with  its  full 


CALVIN  :     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR  ? 


41 


possession"  (donee  plena  frtiitio  nos  jo/jV/).'**'  Could  one 
wish  anything  more  clear?  This  happiness  of  salvation  is 
not  merely  escliatological. 

This  text  annoys  the  inventors  of  the  pessimism  and  ascet- 
icism, etc.,  of  Calvin.  They  summon  exegesis  to  their  aid, 
and  declare  tliat  Calvin  has  in  mind  here,  for  this  earth, 
only  an  abstract  knowledge  of  perfect  happiness.  "This  is 
not  tile  object  of  our  present  pleasure".'"*  We  shall  not  stop 
here  to  show  that  this  exegesis  does  too  much  violence  to  the 
text ;  tliat  a  knowledge  (nota)  which  inflames  the  heart  with 
desire  (desiderio  corda  acccndit),  and  gives  us  already  a 
partial  joy  {frtiitio),  awaiting  complete  happiness  {donee 
plena),  never  was  an  abstract  notion.  But  of  what  use  is 
this  exegesis?  Calvin  has  himself  explained  clearly  his 
thought  and  his  phraseology :  "We  begin  (incipimus)  here 
to  enjoy  the  sweetness  of  His  kindness  in  His  benefits  (di- 
vinae  benignitatis  snavitatem  delibare),  so  that  our  hope  and 
desire  are  incited  to  expect  the  full  revelation  (quo  spcs  ac 
desiderium  nostrum  acuatur  ad  plenam  ejus  revelationem  ex- 
petendam)."^^'' 

Even  Schulze  is  obliged  to  admit  the  existence  of  pas- 
sages that  "seem  to  contradict  his  thesis  explicitly"  {Man- 
chcs  scheint  dent  direet  zu  widersprechen) .^^^  But,  really, 
what  is  to  be  said  ?  This  is  to  be  said,  which  Troeltsch  con- 
fesses, that  the  Reformers  did  not  make  this  earthly  life, 
the  possessions  of  this  life,  ends  in  themselves,  but  means  to 
arrive  at  the  true  goal :  the  possession  of  God,  eternal  life 
in  God.  Only,  if  this  is  eschatological  pessimism,  this  es- 
chatological  pessimism  is  found  in  all  the  Reformers,  as  well 
as  in  Calvin ;  and,  indeed,  before  the  Reformers,  in  St.  Paul. 
Ihis  pretended  eschatological  pessimism  is  an  authentic 
Pauline  conception.  "For  verily  in  this  tabernacle  we 
groan,  longing  to  be  clothed  upon  with  our  habitation  which 


4^ 


EMILE   noLMKKGUE 


is  from  heaven"  (2  Cor.  v.  2).  "For  our  citizenship  is  in 
heaven ;  from  whence  also  we  wait  for  a  Saviour,  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ"  (Phil.  iii.  20).  "For  me  to  live  is  Christ, 
and  to  die  is  gain.  But  if  to  live  in  the  flesh — if  this  is  the 
fruit  of  my  work,  then  what  I  shall  choose  I  wot  not.  But 
I  am  in  a  strait  betwixt  the  two,  having  the  desire  to  depart 
and  be  with  Christ,  which  is  far  better"  (Phil.  i.  21-23). 
"Forgetting  the  things  which  are  behind  and  reaching  forth 
to  the  things  which  are  before,  I  press  on  toward  the  goal, 
unto  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus" 
(Phil.  iii.  13).  "For  our  light  affliction,  which  is  for  the 
moment,  worketh  for  us  more  and  more  exceedingly  an 
eternal  weight  of  glory;  while  we  look  not  at  the  things 
which  are  seeen,  but  at  the  things  which  are  not  seen :  for 
the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal ;  but  the  things  which 
are  not  seen  are  eternal"  (2  Cor.  iv.  17-18). 

Our  readers  may  multiply  these  citations  at  will.  We 
only  add  that  in  case  some  objector  rejects  St.  Paul  alto- 
gether, and  proclaims  him  to  be  the  founder  of  asceticism 
and  of  eschatological  monastic  pessimism,  it  matters  little. 
Jesus  remains.  Is  it  not  He  who  spoke  so  often  of  the 
necessity  for  His  disciples  to  deny  themselves  (Matt.  xvi. 
24),  to  give  up  everything  (Luke  xiv.  33),  to  bear  their 
cross  (Matt.  x.  38),  to  love  Him  more  than  their  fathers 
and  mothers  (Matt.  x.  37),  to  lose,  to  hate  their  own  life 
(Matt.  xvi.  25,  Lk.  xiv.  26),  not  to  lay  up  treasures  on 
earth  (Matt.  vi.  19).  not  to  set  their  hearts  on  treasures  on 
earth  but  on  treasures  in  heaven  (Matt.  vi.  20),  to  make 
themselves  maimed,  halt,  blind,  if  hand,  or  foot,  or  eye  stays 
the  course  toward  eternal  life  (Matt.  xvii.  8-9)?  "Sell  all 
that  thou  hast  and  give  alms  .  .  .  make  for  yourselves  treas- 
ures in  heaven.  .  .  .  For  where  your  treasure  is,  there  will 
your  heart  be  also"  (Lk.  xii.  33-34).  "How  hardly  shall  they 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


43 


that  have  riches  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  Goc  And  the 
disciples  were  amazed  at  his  words.  But  Jesus  answereth 
again  and  saith  unto  them,  Children,  how  hard  is  it  for  them 
that  trust  in  riches  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God!  It  is 
easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  a  needle's  eye  than  for  a 
rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  They  were 
astonished  exceedingly,  saying  unto  him,  then  who  can  be 
saved?  Jesus  looking  upon  them  saith:  With  men  it  is 
impossible,  but  not  with  God;  for  all  things  are  possible 
with  God"  (Mk.  x.  23-27).  Is  all  this  different  from  St. 
Paul  ?  And  had  Calvin  a  different  conception  than  that  of 
St.  Paul  and  Jesus  Christ? 

The  conclusion  is  always  the  same :  the  attacks  on  Calvin 
and  the  Reformation  do  not  strike  the  Reformers  only ;  they 
go  back  to  St.  Paul  and  the  historic  Christ  Himself. 

6.  After  what  Weber  has  said  of  vocation,  we  may  here 
pass  by  in  complete  silence  this  chief  element  of  the  Calvin- 
istic  conception.  The  idea  of  vocation  is  one  of  the  principal 
ideas  of  the  Reformation.  But  it  is  only  with  Calvin  and 
the  Calvinists  that  it  has  developed  its  practical  and  decisive 
consequences.  Giving  to  the  life  of  every  man  and  to  every 
detail  of  that  life  a  divine  value,  it  suffices  of  itself  to  over- 
turn all  the  exploitations  of  the  pretended  pessimism  of 
Calvin. 

But  there  is  another  point,  which  must  be  insisted  upon, 
for  it  is  upon  this  point  that  the  accusations  of  pessimism 
and  asceticism  are  ultii.iately  based — the  more  securely,  it 
is  believed ;  I  mean  Calvin's  conception  of  the  body. 

It  is  said :  "Calvin  especially  likes  the  comparison  of  the 
body  to  a  tent  (quickly  pitched)  or  even  to  a  prison  (besides 
career  there  is  also  crgastuluw)."'^''^^  This  is  true.  It 
might  be  added  that  Calvin  sees  in  the  deliverance  from  the 
body  a  condition  of  complete  deliverance  from  sin.    "There 


44 


£mile  doumergce 


always  remain  many  infirmities",  he  says,  "while  we  are 
shut  up  in  our  mortal  body  (mole  corporis  MO^/ri).""" 
"While  we  inhabit  this  prison  of  our  body  (in  carcere  cor- 
poris nostri)  we  must  always  and  without  ceasing  combat 
the  corruption  of  our  nature.""'  But  are  not  these  pre- 
cisely the  words  and  thoughts  of  St.  Paul?  "I  am  carnal, 
sold  under  sin.  .  .  .  O  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who 
shall  deliver  me  out  of  the  body  of  this  death?"  (Rom. 
vii.  24). 

To  tell  the  truth,  Schulze  has  forgotten  t'j  notice  the  most 
scornful  word  that  Calvin  uses  to  designate  the  body,  a 
word  that  occurs  more  than  once  in  his  Sermons  when  he 
is  tr\-ing  to  smite  as  with  rod  and  hammer  (these  are  his 
own  expressions)  the  hardened  consciences  of  his  hearers: 
"We  are  enveloped  in  our  bodies,  which  are  but  car- 
cases.""'^ 

It  is  seen  that  we  conceal  nothing.  But  just  where  Calvin, 
in  his  extravagant  way  of  speaking,  most  abuses  the  body, 
does  he  most  exalt  it:  "Our  bodies,  although  they  are 
wretched  corpses,  do  not  cease  to  be  temples  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  God  would  be  adored  in  them.  .  .  .  We  are 
the  altars,  at  which  He  is  worshipped,  in  our  bodies  and  in 
our  souls.""* 

But  let  us  go  further  and  from  words  pass  to  ideas.  With 
the  aid  of  a  passage  relative  to  Osiander,  it  is  thought  that  it 
can  be  proved  that  Calvin  excluded  the  body  from  what  is 
called  "the  image  of  God".  This  is  wrong.  What  Calvin 
reproaches  Osiander  with,  is  not  that  he  placed  the  image 
of  God  in  the  soul  and  in  the  body,  but  that  he  did  this 
"confusedly"  (promiscue)  and  "equally"  (tarn  ad  corpus 
quam  ad  animam).  As  to  himself,  if  he  did  not  do  this 
confusedly  and  equally,  he  yet  put  it  in  the  one  no  less  than 
in  the  other.  "The  image  of  God  embraces  the  entire  dignity, 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


45 


by  which  man  is  exalted  above  all  the  animal  species."  And 
he  expressly  says :  "there  is  no  part  of  man,  including  the 
body  itself,  in  which  there  is  not  some  luminous  spark"  of 
that  divine  image."* 

Hence,  while  the  ascetic  conception  tends  to  the  abase- 
ment of  the  body,  the  Calvinistic  conception  tends  to  respect 
for  and  care  of  the  body. 

Calvinism  makes  it  the  strict  duty  of  the  faithful  to  keep 
the  body  clean  and  healthy,  as  much  as  possible.  "God 
deigns  to  dwell  within  us;  let  us  endeavor  then  to  walk  in 
such  purity  of  body  and  soul,  that  our  soul,  especially,  may 
be  purified  from  all  evil  thoughts  and  affections ;  and  then, 
that  our  bodies  also  may  be  kept  with  such  decency  that 
we  shall  not  callously  commit  improprieties  before  men  and 
be  not  ashamed ;  for  this  would  cause  us  to  forget  the  duty 
we  owe  to  God.""'  That  is  to  say  that  there  is  no  place 
in  Calvinism  for  any  St.  Labre  of  repulsive  memory  {de 
pouilleuse  memoire).  Andjthis  explains  how  and  why  it  is 
that  the  most  Calvinistic  peoples,  the  Scotch  and  the  Dutch, 
are  the  most  noted  for  their  cleanliness. 

Cleanliness  and  health.  Health  (as  far  as  it  depends 
upon  ourselves)  is  a  duty  toward  God,  like  cleanliness. 
Recommendations  abound:  "We  must  beware  of  a  too 
great  austerity,  for  God  does  not  wish  that  man  should 
commit  suicide.""'  Man  ought  to  be  as  mindful  of  his 
health  as  possible,  and  this  not  so  much  for  his  own  welfare 
as  that  he  may  study  to  do  good.""'  If  we  are  sick,  we 
must  use  the  remedies  that  are  offered  us ;  "it  is  God's  'vill 
that  we  should  use  them ;  it  is  devilish  pride  that  makes  us 
willing  to  abstain  from  their  use".*"  Isjtjhen  "comely  for 
an  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ  to  exhort  a  man  to  drink  wine"  ? 
Certainly.  "In  everything  and  everywhere,  even  indrink- 
ing  and  eating,  God  wills  that  our  life  should  be  regulated, 


46 


EMILE   DOUMERGUE 


to  the  end  that  by  using  His  creatures  (choses  cries)  we 
may  serve  Him,  that  we  should  be  fit  for  doing  good.""" 
Mens  Sana  in  corpore  sano.  If  there  has  ever  been  a  philos- 
ophy which  explained,  justified  and  preached  this  adage,  it 
is  certainly  the  Christian  philosophy  of  Calvin. 

Far  from  leading  to  asceticism,  this  philosophy  has  led — 
very  logically — to  such  a  union  of  cleanliness  and  piety,  of 
joy  and  health,  as  alone  can  make  our  soul  and  body  do 
their  greatest  service  for  God  and  humanity.  Hence  one 
understands  why  the  body  of  the  Calvinist,  not  less  than  his 
soul,  has  been  so  fit  for  the  conquest  of  the  modem  world 
through  all  the  most  intense  enterprises  of  commerce  and 
industry,  in  the  old  and  in  the  new  world.**" 

Finally,  let  us  note — over  against  all  theologians  suffi- 
ciently blinded  by  their  prejudices  to  speak  still  of  the 
monastic  and  Platonic  asceticism  of  Calvin — let  us  note  the 
belief  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  a  belief  unknown  to 
the  Greek  philosophers,  and  upon  which  Calvin  insists  in 
this  wise:  "The  error  of  those  who  imagine  that  the  soul 
will  not  resume  the  body  with  which  it  is  now  clothed,  but 
that  a  new  one  will  be  made  for  it,  is  so  enormous  that  we 
shall  regard  it  as  a  detestable  monster."**! 

Here  is  a  hymn  in  honor  of  the  body.  The  body  is  a 
temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit:  "Can  it  sink  into  putrefaction 
without  hope  of  resurrection?"*--  The  body  is  a  member 
of  Jesus  Christ.  God  asks  that  our  tongues  and  our  hands 
worship  Him.  H  He  does  "such  honor  to  our  bodies,  what 
madness  is  it  in  mortal  man  to  reduce  them  to  dust  without 
hope  that  they  shall  be  raised  again?"  "Shall  the  body  of 
St.  Paul",  exclaims  Calvin,  "which  bore  the  marks  of  Jesus 
Christ,  which  giorified  him  exceedingly,  be  deprived  of  the 
reward  of  the  crown  ?"**^ 

Schulze  is  here  again  disturbed  by  the  text.     He  is  even 


CALVIN  :     EPIGONE   OR    CREATOR  ? 


-♦7 


obliged  to  admit  "that  there  is  a  real  diflference  between  the 
eschatology  of  Calvin  and  that  of  Plato".  "But",  says  he, 
"it  is  an  unconscious  contradiction,  that  is  all."  "Calvin 
was  not  at  all  conscious  {er  ist  sich  gar  nicht  bewusst)  how 
little  this  agrees  with  his  small  esteem  for  the  body.""* 
Let  the  reader  decide. 

6.  In  order  to  sum  up  and  as  it  were  make  all  these 
ideas  and  opinions  concrete,  nothing  remains  but  to  read  the 
chapter  on  "Christian  Liberty"  (and  some  pages  of  the 
Sermons  treating  of  this  same  subject).  This  chapter  is 
usually  passed  over  in  silence.  And  undoubtedly  it  is  not 
written  with  the  lyric  charm  of  Luther's  analagous  treatise. 
But  it  is  this,  in  ou  view,  that  gives  it  its  value.  There  is  no 
question,  indeed,  of  a  copy,  an  imitation.  There  is  no  ques- 
tion even  of  a  theme  treated  over  again,  but  as  of  necessity, 
because  the  plan  of  the  work  required  it.  Calvin  here  is  per- 
fectly original,  with  a  robust,  spontaneous  and  most  charac- 
teristic originality. 

He  wishes  men  tc  set  themselves  from  the  start  against 
all  monastic  asceticism,  as  if  God  took  pleasure  in  these 
material  sacrifices.  He  shows  that  the  ground  is  slip- 
pery'; and  that  cnce  the  foot  is  set  on  the  slope,  one 
must  go  to  the  end.  The  history  of  certain  Saints  proves 
it.  With  his  virile  good  sense  he  writes :  "When  once  the 
conscience  is  bridled  and  held  in  check  {in  laqueum),  it 
enters  an  infinite  labyrinth  and  a  deep  abyss,  whence  it  is 
not  easy  to  escape.  If  one  begins  to  doubt  whether  it  is 
lawful  for  him  to  use  linen  sheets,  shirts,  handkerchiefs  and 
napkins,  he  will  not  long  be  sure  about  using  hemp,  and  at 
last  he  will  vacillate  as  to  the  use  of  tow.  For  he  will 
wonder  if  he  might  not  eat  without  a  napkin  and  do  without 
handkerchiefs.  Should  he  deem  a  daintier  food  unlawful,  he 
will  at  last  not  dare  to  eat  either  bread  or  common  viands 


48 


6mile  doumergue 


with  an  assured  conscience  before  God,  since  it  will  always 
occur  to  him  that  he  might  sustain  life  with  still  meaner 
food.  If  he  scruples  to  drink  good  wine  (suaviori),  he  will 
afterward  not  dare  to  drink  the  worst  with  a  good  con- 
science, or  water  that  is  unusually  sweet  and  pure ;  in  fine, 
it  will  come  to  this,  that  he  will  hold  it  a  great  sin  to 
trample  on  a  straw  in  his  path."''^'  Liberty!  Liberty! 
says  Calvin.  We  ought,  "without  scruple  of  conscience  or 
trouble  of  spirit,  to  make  such  use  of  the  gifts  of  God  as  has 
been  ordained"."® 

And  from  theory,  Calvin  goes  on  to  practice,  to  examples. 
We  find  in  Calvin  a  man  of  the  i6th  century,  who  loves  to 
banquet,  to  make  good  cheer  and  to  drink  a  few  glasses  of 
good  wine  with  his  friends.  "The  feast  of  Nabal  was  not 
blameworthy  in  itself;  the  divine  law  surely  permitted  him 
to  invite  his  friends  to  a  feast  (convivium) ,  and  to  treat 
them  hospitably  (libcralius).  .  .  .  God  sometimes  per- 
mits us  to  live  more  freely,  more  sumptuously  (lautins),  by 
special  divine  favor."  Nabal  sinned  through  excess;  he 
was  drunken. 

Now  Calvin  is  pitiless  toward  drunkards.  For  drunken- 
ness turns  us  into  unclean  beasts  (sues).  Elsewhere  Calvin 
expresses  himself  in  this  wise:  If  a  man  knows  that  he 
has  a  weak  head,  and  that  he  cannot  carry  three  glasses  of 
wine  without  being  overcome,  and  then  drinks  indiscreetly, 
is  he  not  a  hog?""'^  We  notice  the  "three  glasses  of  wine", 
the  minimum  that  harmed  the  weak  heads  only,  and  we 
strongly  suspect  that  Calvin  did  not  rank  himself  among 
them. 

He  takes  up  again  his  story  of  the  banquet  of  Nabal: 
"The  liberality  of  God  toward  the  human  race  is  so  great, 
that  He  supplies  us  not  only  with  that  which  is  necessary  for 
the  nourishment  of  our  bodies,  but  also  with  that  which  pro- 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


49 


vides  plenty  and  pleasure  {jocunditatem).  Thus  wine  has 
been  given,  not  only  to  strengthen  man's  heart,  but  also  to 
make  him  joyful  {ad  ilium  exhilarandum)  "  It  is  only  nec- 
essary to  use  these  good  things  in  such  a  way  that  we  can 
always  call  upon  God  and  serve  Him.  "In  short,  that  the 
gaiety  (hilaritas)  and  pleasure  (voluptas)  which  we  get  from 
wine  (quam  ex  vino  capimus)  may  not  disturb  our  worship 
of  God  ...  let  us  use  wine  and  other  created  things 
soberly,  with  temperance,  in  order  that  satisfied  by  them 
we  may  receive  new  strength  for  the  fulfilment  of  our 
vocation.""*  Consequently,  he  altogether  approves  of  the 
assembling  of  the  sons  of  Job,  and  "of  the  merry  time  that 
they  had  with  one  another,  that  they  might  continue  in 
amity".  And  in  a  general  way  "we  should  not  have  scruples 
or  super  titions  .  .  .  when  we  are  at  table,  let  us  eat  in 
order  to  be  refreshed,  as  if  God  were  feeding  us"."® 

What  Calvin  says  of  drinking  and  eating  he  repeats 
with  respect  to  all  the  other  joys  of  life.  And  he  writes 
pages  full  of  the  most  significant  realism.  Have  his  critics 
never  read  them?  "Why  are  the  rich  cursed,  who  have  now 
received  their  consolation,  who  are  full  [saturati,  i.  e.  ras- 
sassiis],  who  laugh,  who  sleep  on  beds  of  ivory,  who  add 
possession  to  possession  (agrum  agro),  at  whose  feasts  are 
harps,  lutes,  tambo  irines  and  wine.  Surely  the  ivory  and 
gold  and  riches  are  good  creatures  (bonae  Dei  creaturae 
sunt),  permitted  and  even  appointed  for  the  use  of  men, 
and  nowhere  is  laughing  forbidden,  or  being  full  (satu- 
rari,  se  rassasier),  or  the  acquiring  of  new  possessions 
(novas  possessioncs  veteribus  atque  avitis  adfungere),  or 
delight  in  musical  instruments  (concentu  musico  delectari), 
or  drinking  wine,  etc.  .  .  .  """  Gold,  fields,  dinners,  ban- 
quets, concerts ;  all  this  is  permitted !    What  becomes  of  the 


50 


iMILE  DOUMERGUE 


Stereotyped  remarks  about  the  sombre,  morose  and  "Fran- 
ciscan" asceticism  of  Calvin  ? 

Ritschl  wrote  in  1880:  "As  Calvin,  personally,  did  not 
need  any  recreation,  he  saw  only  pressing  temptations  to  sin 
in  the  social  forms  of  recreation  and  in  the  luxury  that  fol- 
lowed them.  .  .  .  For  this  reason  he  combatted  every- 
thing that  pertained  to  the  gay  and  free  joyousness  of  life 
and  luxury."'8i  These  phrases  have  been  circulated  from 
hand  to  hand,  from  book  to  book,  like  current  coin,  and 
they  may  be  found,  for  example,  in  the  most  recent  popular 
work,  that  of  Bess :  Unsere  rcligioscn  Ersieher,  1908.  Bess 
repeats  religiously:  "This  agreed  with  his  personal  char- 
acter, which  despised  {verachtete) ,  which,  it  may  be  said, 
held  in  horror  (;a  sum  Teil  verabscheute)  all  that  could 
refresh  and  adorn  life  {alle  Mittel  dcr  Erholung  und  Ver- 
schoncrung).  He  was  endowed  with  a  seriousness  and 
with  an  ability  to  work  that  had  no  need  of  diversion 
{Abknkung)."''*^ 

Pure  legend !  Caricature,  the  fruit  of  ignorance  and  pre- 
judice. It  is  sufficient  "to  use  the  gifts  of  God  with  a  pure 
conscience",  to  observe  "the  rule  of  proper  use".  Import- 
ance does  not  attach  to  the  things  themselves,  but  to  the  way 
in  which  they  are  used.  "A  royal  courage  often  dwells  in  a 
coarse  and  homely  garb,  and  an  humble  heart  is  often  hidden 
under  silk  and  velvet."  Poverty,  a  comfortable  estate, 
wealth,— none  of  these  is  essential.  "The  law  of  Christian 
liberty  .  .  .  is  to  be  content  with  what  we  have";  it  is 
to  know  alike  how  to  bear  humiliation  and  honor,  hunger 
and  abundance,  poverty  and  wealth.  "If  this  temperance 
is  wanting,  the  common  and  ordinary  pleasures  are  exces- 
sive.""3  It  would,  in  truth,  be  as  easy  to  caricature  Calvin 
as  a  Rabelaisian  bomnvant,  as  to  caricature  him  as  a  Fran- 
ciscan monk ;  as  easy,  I  should  say  as  difficult.    Calvin  was 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


simply  a  Christian  of  the  type  of  Luther  and  the  Reforma- 
tion, after  the  fashion  of  St.  Paul  and  of  Christ,  a  Christian 
who  had  for  his  ideal  man  created  by  God.  in  a  world  which 
though  fallen  is  still  the  handiwork  of  God. 

It  is  then  by  a  wrong  interpretation  of  certain  passages, 
or  by  disregarding  them  under  the  pretext  of  unconscious 
contradiction,  when,  although  wrongly  interpreted,  they 
are  still  vexatious,  that  the  conclusions  of  the  school  of 
Ritschl  are  formed,  to  wit,  that  in  Calvinism  there  is  "an 
undervaluation  (Uttterschdtsung)  of  man's  task  in  the 
world" ;  that  "as  to  the  work  to  be  done  in  the  world  and 
as  to  its  muhiform  content,  one,  from  this  point  of  view, 
could  not  be  much  concerned  about  it" ;  "that  nothing  shows 
more  clearly  the  tendency  of  morality,  in  the  Calvinistic 
sense,  to  turn  away  from  the  world  (den  Welt  ahgewandten 
Character),  than  the  relation  indicated  between  the  chapter 
in  which  self-denial  is  treated,  and  that  in  which  'bearing 
the  cross  patiently'  is  spoken  of,  and  likewise  the  one  on 
'meditation  on  the  life  to  come'.  ...  As  the  theatre  of 
our  moral  preparation  for  heaven,  this  life,  contemptible  in 
itself,  has  a  value.  But  this  moral  preparation  becomes  a 
habit  of  despising  life  (considered  in  itself)  and  a  habit  of 
striving  after  the  life  to  come.  This  means  that  this  life 
has  this  consequence,  that  while  in  it  we  should  detach  our- 
selves from  it  and  live  for  the  life  to  come.  Thus  the  moral 
earnestness  of  Calvinistic  Christianity  does  not  overcome 
the  mood  of  the  soul  which  longs  for  death  {die  Stimiiiung 
der  Todessehnsucht).  On  the  contrarj',  that  mood  finds  in 
it  new  nourishment."''* 

With  a  slight  modification  of  the  formula  of  Ritschl  we 
might  say  that  in  this  appreciation,  all  that  is  correct  is 
found  in  St.  Paul ;  and  that  what  is  not  found  in  St.  Paul  is 
not  correct.    But  of  what  use  is  further  discussion  amidst 


k 


ill 
ii  A 


52 


£.MILE    DOUMEKGLE 


all  these  subtleties,  and  the  loss  of  time  in  correcting  the 
meaning  of  the  passages  cited,  or  accumulating  neglected 
ones?  This  whole  conception  runs  foul  of  something  more 
solid  even  than  clear  and  numerous  texts;  it  encounters 
reality,  the  reality  of  facts  and  of  all  history.  The  centuries 
and  whole  peoples,  in  the  full  sunlight  of  life,  protest 
against  these  adroit  or  violent  feats  of  the  learned  in  the 
half-light  of  their  closets. 

Calvinism,  lost  in  the  mists  of  eschatologj-,  living  in  the 
pessimistic  expectation  of  death,  paralyzed  by  the  bonds  of 
asceticism!  WhTe  has  a  Calvinist  of  this  sort  ever  been 
seen?  If  Calvini  ii  is  what  Ritschl  and  Schulze  think,  there 
is  only  one  conclusion:  there  have  never  been  men  less 
Calvinistic  than  the  Calvinists !  Far  from  being  a  man  who 
seeks  retirement  or  turns  from  the  world  and  from  the 
present  life,  the  Calvinist  is  one  who  takes  possession  of  the 
world ;  who,  more  than  any  other,  dominates  the  world ;  who 
makes  use  of  it  for  all  his  needs ;  he  is  the  man  of  commerce, 
of  industry,  of  all  inventions  and  all  progress,  even  material. 

And  yet,  after  having  shown  this  colossal  error,  we  shall 
not  close  with  saying  it  is  inexplicable.  Not  at  all;  the 
explanation,  on  the  contrary,  is  very  easy.  The  critics  of 
our  Reformation  have  found  themselves  confronted  with 
the  contradictions  which  we  have  indicated  elsewhere.  They 
are  restricted  to  choosing  one  of  two  terms, — that  one 
which  seems  to  them  to  justify  their  theological  presupposi- 
tion, without  once  asking  if  there  is  not  some  psychological 
explanition.  capable  of  harmonizing  the  apparently  contra- 
dictor)^ terms,  and  even  of  making  one  the  profound 
cause  of  the  other.  For  example,  some  critics  do  not  com- 
prehend how  the  doctrine  of  the  subject-will  (serf-arbitre) , 
pushed  to  the  extreme  by  Calvinists,  has  made  of  precisely 
these  Calvinists  preeminently  the  founders  of  moral  aus- 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE   OR   CREATOR? 


53 


terity  and  civil  liberty.  Yet  it  is  a  fact,  verified  by  the 
counter  testimony  of  Pelagianism,  which — the  party  of  ab- 
solute free-will — leads  to  the  abasement  of  morality  and  to 
social  slavery.  Very  well!  As  to  self-denial  in  life,  and 
the  use  of  life,  exactly  the  same  thing  happens  and  from  the 
same  motives,  as  happened  in  the  case  of  the  subject-will 
and  liberty.  In  spite  of  appearances,  the  former  is  not  the 
denial  of  the  latter;  it  is  its  cause.  With  Calvin,  indeed, 
self-denial  is  not  a  mere  negative,  privative  conception  .  .  . 
in  it  we  find  ourselves  simply  in  the  presence  of  a  principle, 
a  law,  one  of  the  most  important  laws  of  the  spiritual  and 
moral  world.  Per  crucem  ad  gloriam!  Which  sometimes 
means,  through  slavery  to  liberty;  and  sometimes  through 
self-denial  to  possession.  It  is  the  law  which  Christ  Himself 
formulated  with  solemnity  and  with  decisiveness,  when  He 
said :  "Whosoever  would  save  his  life  shall  lose  it :  and  who- 
soever shall  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it"  (Matt. 
xvi.  25).  And  again :  "and  every  one  that  hath  left  houses, 
or  brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  children,  or 
lands,  for  my  name's  sake,  shall  receive  a  hundredfold,  and 
shall  inherit  eternal  life"  (Matt.  xix.  29).  And  again: 
"But  seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteous- 
ness; and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you"  (Matt. 

vi.  33)- 

We  leave  out  of  sight  all  special  intervention  by  God,  all 
miraculous  blessings.  The  psychological  law  is  as  simple  as 
it  is  incontestable.  To  renounce  everything  in  order  to  give 
everything  to  God  and  the  brethren, — this  is  to  be  in  the 
religious  and  moral  state  most  fitted  to  assure  liberty  of 
spirit,  sureness  of  action,  the  emplojTnent  of  the  normal,  the 
moral,  that  is  to  say,  the  most  efficacious,  the  most  produc- 
tive means  for  the  domination  of  the  world.  Egoism,  the 
passions  and  vices  are  not  the  true  means  for  drawing 


54 


feMILE    UOL'MEKGL'E 


from  the  world  its  hidden  resources.  Instead  of  making  us 
masters  of  the  world,  tliey  make  us  slaves.  That  which 
rules  the  world  is  calmness,  self-possession,  virtue,  and,  con- 
sequently, i)iety  and  faith.  In  the  tempest  the  pilot  who  is 
most  certain  to  save  his  own  life  and  tliat  of  the  ship,  is  not 
the  one  who  clings  most  tenaciously  to  life;  it  is  the  one  who 
is  so  ready  to  die  tliat  he  is  calm  and  cool. 

Matter  brings  nothing  out  of  matter.  It  is  the  spirit  that 
makes  of  matter  what  it  will.  He  who  seeks  the  world  for 
the  world,  loses  it.  He  who  loses  it,  for  Christ's  sake,  for 
God's  sake,  gains  it.  He  who  seeks  himself,  loses  him- 
self,— loses  himself,  as  to  eve- vthing  that  is  not  his  real 
self,  in  his  evil  desires  and  mad  passions.  He  who  denies 
himself  for  the  sake  of  God  and  the  brethren,  wins  his  per- 
sonality. Self-possession  is  necessary  for  self-giving;  in 
the  measure  in  which  a  man  gives  himself  he  takes  posses- 
sion of  himself,  he  gains  his  true  self,  his  higher,  spiritual, 
moral  self,  the  acting,  powerful  self.  He  who  denies  him- 
self in  order  to  put  in  the  place  of  himself  goodness,  Christ, 
God,  becomes  a  self,  creative  like  God,  in  every  sphere. 

But  why  invoke  the  example  of  Calvinism  in  the  history 
of  the  old  or  the  new  world?  There  is  a  more  striking 
example  in  the  history  of  humanity.  Christ  is  certainly  the 
Being  who  denied  self  the  most,  and  what  Being  has  more 
completely  conquered  men  and  the  world?  "He  humbled 
himself,  becoming  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of 
the  cross.  Wherefore  also  God  highly  exalted  him  and 
gave  him  the  name,  which  is  above  every  name ;  that  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  the 
heaven  and  things  on  the  earth  and  things  under  the  earth" 
(Phil.  ii.  8-IO). 

Thus  it  is  that  the  pretended  ascetic  pessimism  of  Calvin 
is,  psychologically,  the  cause  of  his  intense  realism;  I  was 


CALVIN:     EPIGONE  OR   CREATOR? 


55 


about  to  say,  of  his  "vitalisme".  And  it  is  thtw  that  the 
Reformation  in  general,  and  Calvinism  in  particular,  break- 
ing with  Romanism  and  Pelagianism,  to  reascend  to  St. 
Paul,  to  the  Christianity  of  the  Gospel  and  of  Christ,  closed 
the  Middle  Ages  and  opened  modem  times. 


THE  REFORMATION  AND  NATURAL  LAW. 


By  August  Lang. 

The  world  of  to-day  is  filled  with  the  conflict  about  the 
modern  understanding  of  the  Gospel.  The  decision  in  this 
conflict  cannot  be  reached  merely  through  Biblical  studies 
and  the  investigation  of  primitive  Christianity ;  there  is  need 
also  of  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  development  of  the 
evangelical  Church  and  of  the  evangelical  spirit,  as  well  as 
with  their  influence  upon  th»  formation  of  the  modern 
world.  In  this  respect,  however,  evangelical  theolog>-  must 
be  pronounced  positively  backward.  The  Protestant  scholar, 
who  is  at  home  in  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  in  primitive  Chris- 
tianity, and  in  the  first  three  centuries,  is  in  Germany  no  less 
than  in  England  and  America  often  without  a  moderately 
adequate  survey  of  the  general  development  of  his  own 
Church.  How  fragmentary  is  the  exposition  in  the  general 
Church  histories,  how  narrow  and  one-sided  in  the  histories 
of  doctrine !  How  many  fields  have  still  received  very  little 
cultivation,  for  example,  non-German  Protestantism,  the 
great  movement  of  the  "Enlightenment"  and  of  Rational- 
ism, Christian  life.  Protestantism  and  culture,  and  the  like! 
In  view  of  this  defect,  Ernst  Troltsch  deserves  gratitude 
on  account  of  the  very  fact  that  he  has  even  undertaken 
such  a  work  as  the  comparatively  full  presentation  of 
"Protestant  Christianity  and  the  Modem  Church",  which  he 
offers  in  the  Kultur  der  Gegenwart}  His  merit  becomes 
greater  on  account  of  the  fertility  of  his  thought,  and  espe- 
cially on  account  of  the  real  breadth  of  vision,  that  has  led 
him  not  to  confine  himself  one-sidedly  to  German  evangel- 


THK    HE  FORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


57 


ical  Christianity,  but  rather  to  attempt  also  an  appreciation 
especially  of  Calvin  and  Calvinism,  as  well  as  of  the  smaller 
reiiijious  parties.  Against  such  merits,  it  is  true,  must  be 
set  the  entirely  mistaken  fundatnental  thesis  of  Troltsch  that 
lutlicr  and  ihe  entire  Reformation  belong  to  the  Middle 
Ages.  This  assertion  is  rightly  contradicted  by  men  of  the 
most  various  opinions — I  name  only  Bohmer,  Loofs,  Kat- 
tenbnsch.  Hun  dinger.' 

Little,  however,  has  yet  been  accomplished  towards  the 
refutation  of  that  proposition,  which  can  be  regarded  only 
as  a  catchword,  similar  to  the  various  clever  half-truths  that 
appear  in  Troltsch's  style.  Students  of  recent  history  have 
lonf;  been  agreed  that  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  conclusion  of  the  religious  wars,  marks  the  beginning  of 
a  new  epoch  in  Church  history,  the  character  of  which,  as 
Loofs^  judiciously  puts  it,  "stands  in  no  less  sharp  contrast 
with  the  previous  period  of  the  Reformation  and  Counter- 
Reformation,  than  that  former  period  with  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  the  Middle  Ages  with  the  period  of  the  ancient  Church". 
The  peculiarity  of  the  new  period  is,  expressed  in  one  word, 
what  is  called,  sometimes  with  pride,  sometimes  with  con- 
tempt, "modernism",  or  "the  modem  spirit".  But  if  the 
division  is  a  real  one,  there  arises  the  question,  embarrassing 
to  every  evangelical  Christian,  How  is  the  modem  spirit, 
which,  since  the  seventeenth  century,  in  spite  of  the  check 
that  it  received  in  the  nineteenth,  has  been  unfolding  itself 
with  ever-increasing  vigor,  related  to  the  Gospel  of  the 
Reformation?  How  could  the  age  of  the  Reformation  with 
its  conflicts  of  faith  be  followed  so  suddenly  by  an  age  whose 
views  about  historical  criticism  and  natural  science,  about 
politics  and  social  life,  are  in  part  directly  opposed  to  the 
Reformation  conception  of  the  world?  What  forces  of  the 
Gospel  had  a  part  in  the  development  of  the  new  way  of 


AUGUST   LANG 


thinking?  What  other,  unevangelical,  tendencies  intruded 
themselves,  and  therefore,  because  they  arose,  for  example, 
in  Catholicism  (and  hence  in  false  belief),  or  in  an  unbe- 
lieving and  therefore  pernicious  development  of  civilization, 
must  be  combatted  and  eliminated?  Or  perhaps  the  Gospel 
of  the  Reformation  is  no  longer  judge  over  modern  pro- 
gress ?  Perhaps  it  is  rather  the  latter  that  shall  decide  how 
much  of  the  former  is  still  tenable  and  fit  for  use  ? 

To  these  questions,  which,  although  they  concern  the 
systematic  theologian  as  much  as  the  historian,  are  primarily 
historical  questions,  I  desire  to  make  a  slight  contribution  by 
examining  the  relation  between  the  Reformation  and  Natural 
Law.  For  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  "natural  law" — 
primarily  a  school  of  jurisprudence,  usually  regarded  as 
beginning  with  Hugo  Grotius  and  not  till  the  nineteenth 
century  replaced  by  the  historical  school — was  one  of  the 
principal  historical  factors  in  the  formation  of  the  modem 
spirit,  a  factor  whose  after-effects  are  still  perceptible  in 
the  most  diverse  spheres.  For  not  only  have  the  laws  of 
the  evangelical  Church  itself  been  influenced  thereby,  both 
in  the  collegial  law  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  also, 
though  not  so  strongly,  in  the  modern  presbyterial-synodical 
constitutions;  but  especially  all  the  political  reversals  up  to 
the  Frerich  Revolution  are  most  intimately  connected  with 
the  natural-law  theories.  Rousseau's  Contrat  social  is  the 
last  great  manifest  of  natural  law.  This  itself  is  sufficient 
to  show  that  natural  law  was  more  than  a  mere  political  and 
legal  system ;  it  became  also  the  starting-point  for  "natural 
theology",  the  broad  religious  basis  of  the  religion  of  the 
"Enlightenment". 

How  could  this  natural  law  spring  up  on  the  ground  of 
the  Reformation,  take  such  deep  root  and  put  forth  such 
wide-spreading  branches?     Of  course,  it  is  far  from  my 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   NATURAL   LAW 


59 


intention  to  include  in  the  investigation  the  whole  compli- 
cated phenomenon  of  natural  law,*  especially  on  its  juristic 
and  purely  political  side.  My  endeavor  is  only  to  study  the 
beginnings  of  natural  law  on  Protestant  ground  (which  in 
many  ways  were  interwoven  with  theological  points  of 
view),  and  even  in  this,  I  am  not  attempting  anything  like 
completeness,  but  desire  merely,  by  means  of  certain  chief 
representatives,  to  show  from  the  origin  of  the  natural 
law  of  the  "Enlightenment",  how  far  that  movement  was 
influenced  whether  positively  or  negatively  by  the  ideas  and 
motives  of  the  Reformation. 


First  of  all,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  natural  law 
received  at  one  point  in  the  Reformation  theology  itself, 
if  not  a  formal  treatment,  at  least  an  organic  insertion  into 
the  general  body  of  its  dogmatico-ethical  system,  namely,  in 
Melanchthon.  Sr  ^arly  as  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Loci,^ 
that  echo  of  the  j^spel  of  Luther,  he  mentions  the  most 
usual  forms  {communissimas  f  rntas)  of  the  lex  naturae  or 
of  the  ius  naturale,  as  the  theologians  and  jurists  were  ac- 
customed to  set  them  forth.  These  he  finds  in  three  princi- 
pal divisions  of  natural  law — concerning  the  worship  of 
God.  concerning  the  formation  of  the  state  and  the  inviola- 
bility of  the  individual  persons  guaranteed  in  the  state,  and 
concerning  property — and  to  these  he  appends  a  brief  notice 
about  the  ius  geniiutn  with  its  regulations  concerning  mar- 
riage, business,  trade  and  the  like.  Biblical  attestation  of 
the  lex  naturae  with  its  innate  moral  principles  is  according 
to  Melanchthon  contained  in  the  apostolic  dictum,  Rom. 
ii.  15.  Nevertheless,  he  is  unwilling  at  first  to  concede  to 
natural  law  any  influence  upon  his  system,  for,  now  that 
human  reason  has  been  darkened  by  the  Fall,  though  the 


6o 


AUGUST   LANG 


moral  faculty  of  man  survives,  yet  it  would  be  a  great  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  the  material  content  of  the  innate  moral 
law  can  be  disengaged  from  the  corruptions  that  have  in- 
truded themselves.*    So  in  1521 ;  but  the  disposition  of  the 
Reformer  becomes  much  more  favorable  in  the  editions  of 
the  Loci  subsequent  to   1535,  after  he  had  turned  aside 
towards  synergism.     While  he  recognizes  no  relation  be- 
tween the  naturalis  notitia  and  the  Gospel,  both  on  account 
of  the  character  of  the  Gospel  as  mystcrium  and  on  account 
of  the  grace  that  is  contained  in  it,  he  now  sets  up  the  equa- 
tion :  legem  divinam  notitias  esse  nobiscum  nascentes  sicut 
aliarum  artiwn  principia  et  demonstrationes.''    Una  est  lex 
et  natttra  nota  omnibus  gentibus  et  aetatibus.^     It  is  true 
that  emphasis  is  still  placed  upon  the  fact  that  natural  law, 
esptcially  with  regard  to  the  first  table,  is  much  obscured, 
and  above  all  lacks  the  power  for  the  execution  of  its  com- 
mands; yet  there  is  no  principial  but  merely  an  accidental 
opposition  between  the  revealed  and  the  natural  law.    The 
Decalogue  has  rather  merely  the  function  of  elucidating 
and  expounding  the  law  of  nature.    Accordingly,  a  number 
of  natural-law  principles  are  again  discussed ;  for  example, 
in  the  regulations  of  the  Mosaic  law  about  the  forbidden 
degrees  in  marriage,  an  element  is  discovered  which,  since 
it  belongs  to  natural  law,  is  therefore  binding  upon  the 
whole  of  humanity.     In  proof  is  cited  the  assertion  of 
Scripture  that  the  Canaanites  (though  they  were  not  subject 
to  the  revealed  law)  were  exterminated  on  account  of  their 
incestuous  disregard  of  the  marriage  laws' — an  argument 
which  appears  afterwards  in  Hugo  Grotius  in  almost  the 
same  form. 

With  the  disquisitions  in  the  Loci  agrees  the  frequent 
mention  of  natural  law  in  other  writings  of  the  Reformer. 
To  select  merely  one  class  of  instances,  I  may  refer  especially 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL   LAW 


6l 


to  the  frequent  Declamationes  de  dignitate  legwn.^'^  God, 
so  we  hear  in  these  passages,  has  infused  a  ray  of  His 
eternal  wisdom  and  justice  into  the  nature  of  men,  and 
however  weak  that  nature  has  become,  God  has  left  even  to 
fallen  men  so  much  comprehension  of  His  law  that  that  law 
rules  their  outward  behavior,  indeed  in  a  certain  sense  their 
will.**  This  law  of  nature  is  best  expressed  in  the  Deca- 
logue." Yet  all  other  laws  of  the  nations  have  issued  from 
these  initia  et  princif>ia  given  by  nature,  and  in  spite  of  their 
diversity  are,  in  accordance  with  the  character  of  each  na- 
tion, good  and  justifiable,  in  so  far  as  they  ad  ilium  radium 
lucis  divinae  transfusum  in  mentes  hominum  congruant,  qui 
vacatur  ius  naturae,  ex  quo  vult  Dens  exstrui  leges}^ 
Among  all  the  legal  systems  that  have  been  formed  upon  the 
basis  of  this  law  of  nature,  the  Roman  law  deserves  the 
palm ;  nusquam  extat  perfectior  et  illustrior  imago  iusticiae 
quam  in  his  [Romanis]  legibus}*  Such  expressions,  it  is 
true,  contain  nothing  about  a  primitive  contract  or  the  like, 
yet  evidently  something  more  is  intended  than  the  mere 
natural  faculty  for  law-making ;  for  natural  law  is  called  in 
to  decide  the  most  important  legal  questions — not  merely, 
for  example,  in  an  academic  discussion  as  to  whether  or  no 
the  assassination  of  Csesar  was  justifiable,"  but  also  in  the 
extremely  important  question  of  practical  politics :  an  liceat 
vi  resistere  Caesari  vim  iniustam  inferenti.  With  regard 
to  this  question  Melanchthon's  finding  on  the  basis  of  nat- 
ural law  in  1530  still  runs :  ctiam  sententiae  iniustae  iudicio 
sit  obediendum}*  Later,  on  the  other  hand,  in  1537,  he 
expresses  quite  the  opposite  opinion :  Evangelium  non  tollit 
magistratum  et  ius  naturae;  hence  licita  defensio  contra 
inferentem  iniustum  helium}'' 

An  example  of  the  variableness  of  natural-law  concep- 
tions !    The  estimate  placed  upon  the  law  of  nature  receives 


AUGUST    LANG 


further  light,  however,  when  it  is  observed  that  Melanchthon 
regards  the  natural  moral  law  in  general  as  the  most  valu- 
able product  of  human  reason,  indeed  as  the  highest  achieve- 
ment of  philosophical  thought.  Nevertheless,  in  the  equation 
between  divine  and  natural  law  the  point  was  given,  where, 
in  the  orthodox  system  which  was  being  formed,  secular 
science,  philosophy,  law  and  the  like  could  come  into  organic 
connection  with  the  purely  theological  principles  derived 
from  the  Gospel.  Accordingly,  Lutheran  orthodoxy  gives 
to  the  dogmatics  and  ethics  that  are  derived  from  Reve- 
lation a  substructure  of  natural  sciences  and  arts,  which, 
it  is  true,  as  a  lower,  secular  sphere  must  allow  its  truth- 
content  to  be  controlled  and  corrected  by  the  higher,  spiritual 
sphere.  In  this  connection,  even  before  Grotius,  there  ap- 
peared in  Lutheran  territory  expositions  of  natural  law  by 
Oldendorp,  Hemminp-  Winkler,  which  derived  their  nour- 
ishment substantially  from  the  material  afforded  by  Me- 
lanchthon's  ideas.'* 

Troltsch,  who  in  his  treatise,  Vemimft  und  Offcnbarung 
bci  Joh.  Gerhard  xind  Melanchthon,  first  made  these  rela- 
tions clear,  is  unwilling,  it  is  true,  to  recognize  in  the  whole 
phenomenon  a  creative  act  of  genius  on  the  part  of  Me- 
lanchthon. yet  he  regards  it  as  a  necessary  "compromise 
between  the  autonomous  reason  that  was  so  to  speak  incar- 
nate in  the  productions  of  antiquity  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
religious  spirit  of  humanity  on  the  other".  It  was  a  compro- 
mise such  as  within  our  circle  of  culture  "cannot  be  avoided 
by  any  theologj'",  and  one  cannot  refuse  a  certain  admiration 
to  the  grandeur  of  the  plain  and  straightforward  sequence 
of  thought."  We  neither  desire  nor  are  we  able  to  dispute 
this  estimate  here,  but  it  should  at  least  be  said  even  at  this 
point  that  the  adjustment  thus  secured  between  secular  and 
theological  science  remained  entirely  unfruitful  for  the  fu- 


THE    REFORMATION    AXD   NATURAL    LAW 


63 


ture.  When  Lutheran  orthodoxy  fell  to  pieces,  the  new 
scientific  impulses,  in  quite  a  special  manner  those  for  nat- 
ural law,  came  from  the  West,  from  the  science  that  had 
been  developed  in  the  Calvinistic  camp.  A  Pufendorf  and  a 
Thomasius,  as  is  well  known,  did  not  start  from  Melanch- 
thon  or  the  orthodoxy,  but  from  Grotius  and  his  spiritual 
kinsmen. 

But  if  the  natural-law  theories  could  appeal  to  Melanch- 
thon  as  their  patron,  is  the  same  true  for  the  other  Re- 
formers as  well  ?  For  Lutl.er,  this  is  affirmed  by  the  Paris 
theologian  Eugene  Ehrhardt,  who  has  published  a  special 
investigation  under  the  title,  "La  notion  du  droit  mttirel  chez 
Luther."2°  It  is  a  fact  that  Luther  often  speaks  of  natural 
law  or  the  law  of  nature,2»  and  Ehrhardt,  investigating, 
thougli  not  with  absolute  completeness,  the  use  of  the  con- 
ception in  the  writings  of  the  Reformer,  believes  he  has 
dis:  nxred  that  the  conception  in  Luther  also  has  had  its 
roots  in  fundamental  principles  of  his  theology.22  This 
judgment  becomes  already  precarious,  however,  when  it  is 
observed  that  the  notion  of  natural  law,  which,  it  is  true,  is 
at  all  times  variable,  threatens  in  the  Reformer  to  lose  itself 
almost  altogether  in  the  most  diverse  interpretations.  At 
one  time,  he  thinks  of  it  as  like  a  lav/  of  reason  which 
"issuing  from  free  reason  overleaps  all  books"."  At  an- 
other time  it  is  like  "natural  equity"."  At  another  time 
it  is  identified  out  and  out  with  the  law  of  Christian  love," 
when  it  is  said  of  the  law  of  nature :  "which  also  the  Lord 
declares  in  Luke  vi.  31  and  Matt.  vii.  12:  'whatsoever  ye 
would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them'."^* 
At  another  time,  however,  it  is  again  only  the  law  "which 
also  heathen,  Turks  and  Jews  must  keep",  "kept  among  all 
lieathen  in  common",  which,  although  it  forbids  resistance 
to  lawful  authority,  still  is  far  from  making  a  man  a  Chris- 


■^Hl 


64 


AlGIST    LANG 


tian.-'  In  expressing  himself  about  its  relation  to  positive 
law.  Luther  now  places  it  in  the  closest  relation  to  Roman 
law.-**  now  regards  it  as  the  source  of  all  written  law;^' 
at  another  time  he  distinguishes  the  natural  law  as  the 
general  moral  demands  of  conscience  from  Moses'  law 
as  the  Jew's  Sachscnspicgel,  and  yet  says  just  afterwards 
that  the  natural  laws  are  nowhere  drawn  up  in  such  a  fine 
and  orderly  manner  as  in  Moses.'"  It  is  of  course  easy,  in 
connection  with  Rom.  i.  igff.  and  ii.  15,  to  discover  a  ruling 
idea  in  these  more  or  less  divergent  utterances,  but  if  this 
idea  had,  as  Ehrhardt  supposes,  exerted  a  per\'asive  and 
fundamental  influence  over  Luther's  ethical,  social  and  po- 
litical views,  Luther  would  probably  have  taken  occasion  to 
express  himself  more  fully  and  definitely  about  the  meaning 
and  character  of  natural  law. 

Luther's  conception  of  the  state,  its  duties  and  its  relation 
to  the  Kingdom  of  God,  is  plainly  two-fold.  On  the  one 
side,  as  is  well  known,  he  freed  the  natural  arrangements  of 
life  in  family  and  state  from  the  ban  of  ecclesiastical  ascet- 
icism ;  the  "civil  law  and  sword"  is  a  divine  institution  that 
has  its  office  from  God.*'  The  state's  historical  and  positive 
laws  have  their  authority  according  to  the  will  of  God,  and 
no  natural  law  may  nullify  them.  "^  By  virtue  of  the  uni- 
versal priesthood,  the  civil  authority  has  the  right  of  refor- 
mation. It  has  the  right  to  abolish  all  abuses  that  have 
established  themselves  in  the  "Christian  body","  that  is,  in 
state  and  Church,  in  case  the  ecclesiastical  authority  does  not 
itself  make  the  first  move.  In  correspondence  with  this 
positive  estimate  of  the  functions  of  the  state,  the  direction 
of  Church  affairs  under  the  new  conditions  came  later,  in 
the  evangelical  territories,  with  at  least  the  permission  of  the 
Reformer,  into  the  hands  of  the  princes  and  magistrates. 

But  alongside  of  the  positive  view  of  the  state,  stands  a 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   NATURAL   LAW 


65 


more  negative  one,"  and  to  this  indeed  Luther  has  given 
more  frequent  expression  in  his  writings.     He  starts  here 
from  a  strict  separation  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  the 
kingdom  of  the  world.    There  are  "two  divisions  of  Adam's 
children,  of  which  one  is  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  under 
Clirist,  the  other,  in  the  kingdom  of  the  world  under  the 
magistrate"."     The  latter  is  by  nature  evil  through  and 
through.     "We  are  serving  here  in  an  inn,  where  the  devil 
is  master,  and  the  world  mistress,  and  all  kinds  of  evil 
desires  are  the  household;  and  these  all  together— master, 
mistress,  and  household  —  are  the  Gospel's  enemies  and 
adversaries.    If  a  man  steals  thy  gold,  defames  thy  honor, 
remember,  in  this  house,  that  is  the  way  things  go."''    The 
civil  authority  has  the  commission  to  check  evil  in  some 
measure,  lest  things  devour  one  another.*^    Therefore  it  is 
necessary  for  the  bad  and  the  weak;  but  the  Christians,  the 
living  members  of  the  body  of  Christ,  have  no  need  of  it 
at  bottom.    The  Gospel  "places  the  outward  life  altogether 
in  suffering,  injustice,  a  cross,  patience  and  contempt  of 
temporal  goods  and  temporal  life" ;  but  where  there  is  "noth- 
ing but  enduring,  no  punishment,  no  law,  no  sword  is 
needed".88     "The  kingdom  of  the  world  is  a  kingdom  of 
wrath  and  sternness",  "a  true  forerunner  of  hell  and  of  eter- 
nal death",  hence  also  its  "instrument"  is  a  naked  sword.«» 
When  such  a  negative  view  is  held  of  legal  institutions, 
the  Scripture  cannot  of  course  be  the  source  of  their  au- 
thority.   A  theologian  must  teach  simply  belief  in  the  Lord 
Christ,  and  not  meddle  with  secular  aflfairs.*"    "God  has  sub- 
jected and  entrusted  the  civil  government  to  the  reason, 
because  that  government  has  to  control  not  the  soul's  salva- 
tion nor  eternal  goods,  but  only  bodily  and  temporal  posses- 
sions.""    Now  Ehrhardt  calls  up  that  passage  from  the 
treatise.  Von  weltlkher  Obrigkeit*'  in  which  natural  law  is 


66 


AUGUST   LANG 


identified  with  the  reason,  inasmuch  as  the  reason  is  the 
"law- fountain"*"  of  all  written  law.  From  this  Ehrhardt 
draws  the  conclusion  that  Luther  saw  in  natural  law  or  the 
law  of  reason  the  particular  source  of  all  legal  institutions.** 
Lutiicr  had  to  fight  against  a  double  opposition,  Ehrhardt 
continues — against  the  Catholic  theocracy,  and  against  the 
theocracy  of  the  letter  of  Scripture,  which  the  fanatics 
sought  to  establish.  On  both  sides,  he  defended  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  state — both  over  against  ecclesiastical  tute- 
lage, and  also  in  recognition  of  the  fact  that  state  and  Gospel 
belonged  to  entirely  separate  spheres  of  life.  But  this  inde- 
pendence of  the  state  and  of  society  he  secured  by  represent- 
ing the  foundation  of  their  legal  order  to  be  natural  law, 
whicli,  in  accordance  with  its  origin  in  the  primitive  revela- 
tion, he  could  in  a  certain  sense  designate  also  as  divine  law. 
So  the  idea  of  natiiral  law,  Ehrhardt  concludes,  becomes  a 
necessarj'  middle  term  in  the  sequence  of  Luther's  thought." 
Nevertheless,  Ehrhardt  is  himself  obliged  to  admit  that 
in  his  practical  instructions  for  dealing  with  individual  legal 
and  social  questions,  the  Reformer  often  did  not  at  all  abide 
by  his  notion  of  natural  law  as  Ehrhardt  has  conceived  it; 
not  in  the  attitude  of  the  state  with  respect  to  the  persecution 
of  heretics,  not  with  regard  to  property,  marriage,  interest 
and  usury — that  is,  not  in  any  of  the  individual  questions 
that  Ehrhardt  discusses.  Ehrhardt  concludes  that  Luther 
indeed  desired  to  make  of  his  natural  law  a  principle  of 
social  reform,  but  as  soon  as  he  tried  to  bring  this  concep- 
tion into  practical  use,  he  had  to  borrow  now  from  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  now  from  Roman  law,  from  national 
traditions,  indeed  even  from  canon  law.*'  It  is  possible  to 
go  still  further  and  to  maintain  that,  aside  from  isolated 
utterances,  Luther's  method  of  reasoning  in  the  practical 
concerns  of  national  and  social  life  is  based  throughout  upon 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


67 


tlie  ethical  principles  of  Cliristianity  and  the  Bible.  He 
desires  to  deal  with  the  twelve  articles  of  the  peasants,  in 
accordance  with  their  proposal,  on  the  basis  of  "clear,  open, 
undeniable  sayings  of  Scripture","  and  so  in  all  the  disputed 
questions  before  him  he  treats  the  Christian-ethical  princi- 
ples derived  from  God's  word  as  the  decisive  norm.  His 
only  quarrel  with  the  fanatics  is  that  they  apply  the  letter  of 
Scripture  to  the  affairs  of  the  state  and  of  society  as  a  rigid 
law,  without  regard  for  historical  development,  without  re- 
cognition of  the  distinction  between  the  Gospel  and  legal 
institutions.  Natural  law  is  for  him.  it  is  true,  a  familiar 
and  recognized  conception ;  but  everywhere  he  permits  it  to 
play  merely  a  secondary,  incidental  part.  The  best  proof  of 
this  is  afforded  by  the  treatise.  Von  zvcltlichcr  Obrigkcit,  in 
which  Luther  delivers  himself  at  great  length  about  the 
divine  right  of  the  civil  authority,  the  limits  of  its  power, 
the  duties  of  a  prince,  with  interpretation  of  the  Bible  texts 
in  point;  but  takes  notice  of  natural  law  only  at  the  very  end 
and  in  an  extremely  cursory  manner.** 

The  above-mentioned  antinomy  in  the  thought  of  Luther 
nhout  the  state  is  to  be  judged  similarly  to  the  well-known 
antinomy  in  his  view  of  the  relation  between  law  and  Gospel. 
Tile  lex  moralis  as  a  wage-agreement  Ijetwtcn  God  and  man 
is,  according  to  Luther,  abolished  for  the  regenerated  man ; 
indeed  it  is  regarded  by  him  as  the  pernicious,  death-dealing, 
sin-increasing  power.  On  tl'e  other  hand,  as  moral  obliga- 
tion it  is  retained  even  Iiy  Luther,  although  his  expressions 
are  not  always  perfectly  consistent.  Indeed  faith.  Luther 
says,  should  procure  for  the  law  its  true  fulfilment.*" 
To  the  former  manner  of  regarding  the  law  is  closely 
related  the  negative  view  of  the  state  and  of  legal  insti- 
tutions as  a  piece  of  this  world,  to  which  the  Christian  must 
with  suffering  accommodate  himself.    But  accordingly  this 


68 


AL'GLST    LANG 


view  is  supplemented  by  the  valuation  of  the  state  and  of 
social  relations  as  divine  institutions;  where,  however,  this 
positive  valuation  makes  itself  felt,  there  also  the  life  of  the 
state  is  subjected  to  jud^ncnt  according  to  Christian-ethical 
standards,  which  are  derived  not  from  natural  law  but  from 
the  Scriptures.  In  tliis  sense.  Luther  at  any  rate  always 
taught  the  so-called  tisus  civil  is  or  politicus  of  the  revealed 
law,'"  upon  which,  as  well  as  upon  the  New  Testament 
passages  about  its  own  divine  establishment."  the  civil  power 
supports  its  authority  for  the  punishment  of  evil-doers.'- 

It  is  true,  after  all  has  been  said,  that  the  relation  between 
ethics  and  law.  Scripture  truth  and  state  institutions,  was,  in 
spite  of  many  valuable  beginnings,  never  brought  by  Luther 
to  a  perfectly  clear  definition;  but  this  lack  of  clearness 
should  not  be  exploited  for  the  benefit  of  natural-law  theo- 
ries. Luther's  merit  is  that  he  assigned  to  the  state  and  to 
law  an  independent,  well-grounded  special  province.  But 
when  it  comes  to  developing  that  special  province,  Luther 
simply  uses  the  ethical  principles  of  the  Christian  revelation ; 
or  else  he  refers,  as,  for  example,  in  a  fine  passage  of  his 
Auslegnng  dcs  loi.  Psalms^^  to  "God's  wonder-workers".'* 
whom  He  raises  up  now  and  then  and  whose  mind  and  heart 
He  endows  with  the  power  of  separating  the  "healthy  law" 
from  the  "diseased  law",  who  either  "change  the  law  or  so 
master  it,  that  the  whole  land  thrives  and  blooms".  Luther 
intimates  here  that  the  secular  law,  so  far  as  it  proves 
itself  useful  and  excellent,  is  given  to  the  peoples  by  wise 
rulers,  "heroes  of  law",  who  create  it  by  their  genius,  their 
endowment  from  above;  accordingly,  he  would  have  pro- 
vided the  historical  school  of  jurisprudence  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  long  before  its  appearance,  with  a  convincing  justi- 
fication. 

Even  less  than  Luther  does  Calvin  show  himself  a  friend 


THE    KEKORMATION    AND    NATURAL   LAW 


69 


of  natural  law.  He  holds  ^)  strongly  the  fundamental 
Reformation  conviction  of  the  universal  sinful  corruption  of 
the  natural  man.  True,  he  admits  in  his  Commentary  on 
Rouians^'^  that  there  is  naturalis  quacdam  legis  intdligentia, 
quae  hoc  bonum  atquc  expetibile  dictet,  illud  autem  detes- 
tandum,  that  quasdam  iustitiae  ac  rectitudinis  conceptiones, 
quas  Graeci  trpo\rr<^(i<:  vacant,  hominum  animis  esse  natur- 
aliter  ingcnitas.  These  "seeds  of  righteousness"  consist  in 
the  fact  that  all  peoples  have  religion,  punish  adultery, 
theft,  murder,  also  lay  stress  upon  fidelity  and  trust  in  trade 
and  intercourse."  Likewise  Calvin  speaks  in  the  introduc- 
tory chapters  of  the  h'stitutio  of  the  natural  knowledge  of 
God  implanted  in  the  human  spirit,  but  at  the  same  time  he 
pronounces  this  knowledge  completely  corrupted  and  stifled. 
Hinc  rursiis  facile  elicitur  quantum  ah  liac  confusa  Dei  noti- 
tia  differat,  quae  solis  fidclium  pectoribus  instillatur  pictas, 
ex  qua  demum  rcligio  nascitur.^''  The  natural  knowledge  of 
God  serves  him  only  as  a  dark  background  to  set  off  in  all 
the  clearer  light  the  knov  ledge  which  faith  derives  from 
the  revelation  of  God  in  Scripture.  Therefore  Calvin  at- 
tributes also  to  the  lex  naturae  as  moral  standard,  in  spite  of 
that  passage  in  the  Commentary  on  Romans,  only  a  subor- 
dinate value.  Of  the  three  passages  where  the  Institutio 
mentions  the  lex  naturae,  it  is  said  of  it  in  the  first  two 
merely  that  it  afTords  only  a  very  faint  foretaste  of  what  is 
really  well-pleasing  to  God."*  and  serves  only  the  purpose  of 
preventing  man  from  pleading  before  the  judgment-seat  of 
God  the  excuse  of  ignorance.'®  More  important  is  the  third 
place  where  it  is  mentioned,  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Insti- 
tutio. Here  the  question  under  discussion  is.  Where  does  a 
Christian  state  secure  the  ethico-religious  standard  for  its 
legislation  ?  Even  Calvin  rejects  here  the  unqualified  subor- 
dination of  the  state's  law  to  the  law  of  Moses.^"     He  dis- 


70 


Al'Gl  ST    LANG 


tiiiR^nisIits  ill  the  revealed  law  Inrtweeii  tlie  ethical  principles, 
whicli  are  suniiTied  up  in  the  coinmauchiieiit  of  love  to  God 
and  one's  iieij;hlK-»r.  and  which  for  all  i)eoples  and  all  ages 
represent  the  eternal  rule  of  righteousness,  and  the  judicial, 
purely  political  re,t,'ulati()ns  in  the  law  of  Moses  (miiriorum 
fonna,  inJuiaruw  coustittttioni's).  which  have  merely  the 
temporary  imi)ortance  for  Israel  of  confimiing  love,  the 
eternal  law  of  God.  as  the  foundation  of  legal  enactments 
and  procedure  in  tlu-  Jewish  i)co|)k-.  l-'roin  the  latter  ele- 
ment of  the  revealed  law.  Calvin  says  the  other  iwopk-s  are 
free,  hut  not  from  the  former.  For  although  laws  mav  be 
very  differently  constituted  in  detail  (Icfjis  constitutio)  ac- 
cording to  dilTerent  conditions  and  circumstances,  yet  in 
their  ethical  tendency  they  nuist  all  exhibit  a  natural  equity 
(uaturalis  inujiiitas).  as  it  is  demanded  by  the  conscience  of 
man.  Rut  since  the  revealed  divine  moral  law  is  nothing 
else  than  vaturalis  Icgis  tcsttnioiiitdii.  the  l)est  expression  of 
that  natural  acquitas,  it  contains  standard,  goal,  and  limits 
for  the  legislation  of  the  peoples  and  nations."'  So  the  na- 
tions may  indeed  make  their  laws.  Calvin  says,  without  refer- 
ence to  Mose-;.  as  they  thi)ik  advantata-ous;  onlv  these  laws 
must  conform  to  the  eternal  fundamental  law  of  love  in 
God's  conimaTidment.  so  that  though  the  forni  varies,  the 
tendency  shall  remain  the  same."- 

In  this  sequence  of  thought  the  incidental  mention  of  nat- 
ural law  serves  merely  the  purpose  of  strengthening  the 
Calvinistic  principle,  that  for  the  state  and  for  law  as  well 
a<  fi.r  other  things,  desjjite  all  nccidi-ntal  di;Tercncts.  still  the 
eternal  norm  is  to  W  found  in  tlio  ri-Iuly  undorsfoo  1  reve- 
lation of  the  divine  will  in  Scripture.  This  is  in  harmony 
also  with  the  method  of  the  Geneva  thinker;  natural  law 
plays  no  nart  in  his  judgment  of  legal  and  social  conditions. 
Tt  is  true  that  in  the  cnllection  of  liis  Consilia"^  we  meet  at 


THE    KKFORMATION    AND   NATURAL   LAW 


7' 


one  point  a  remark  about  the  cquitc  natureltc,  at  another 
ixiint.  one  about  the  ius  naturalc,  which  are  identified  both 
times  with  the  rule  of  Christ,  "Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them"."*  Indeed, 
in  a  difficulty,  in  order  to  strengthen  his  view  that  marriage 
with  a  brother's  widow  is  opposed  to  the  Mosaic  law  and 
therefore  forbidden  for  Christians  too,  Calvin  has  recourse 
also  to  the  commune  ius  gentium  (whereby,  however,  he 
means  nothing  more  than  the  naturae  honestas),  which 
<leclares  that  even  ipse  naturae  scnsus  rejects  such  marriages 
as  foeditas.^'^  Similarly  he  places  the  law  of  Moses  and  the 
commune  ius  gentium  side  by  side  in  still  another  difficulty 
about  the  marriage  laws.*"  Further  utterances  of  that  kind, 
however,  have  not  come  to  my  notice  in  my  search  in  the 
writings  of  Calvin  for  the  point  now  under  discussion. 
Evcrj-where  else — in  the  treatment  of  usury,"^  of  the  right 
of  the  civil  autliority.""  or  oi  the  duty  of  ()l)edience  even  to 
tyrannical  rulers,""  and  the  like — natural  law  is  passed  over 
without  a  word.  Most  convincing,  however,  is  the  above- 
mentioned  closing  chapter  of  the  Institutio.  Here  the  Re- 
former, in  his  discussion  about  the  civil  authority  and  the 
constitution  of  the  state,  about  legislation  and  the  position 
of  the  subjects,  offers  in  his  way  a  "Politics".  But  in  so 
doing,  he  never  deserts  the  method  that  he  employs  through- 
out the  whole  of  tlie  Institutio — a  method  which  is  based 
upon  Scripture  and  the  analogia  fidci,  or  in  this  case  also 
upon  the  revealed  moral  law  confirmed  by  the  naturalis 
acquitas.  This  method  he  does  not  sacrifice  at  a  single  point 
for  the  benefit  of  a  general  ethical  ratiocination,  certainly 
not  for  natural-law  theories  of  any  description. 

We  may  conclude  as  follows.  All  the  Reformers  recog- 
nized of  course  a  natural  moral  faculty  on  the  ground  of 
Rom.  ii.  15.     But  there  are  also  indications  that  even  they, 


72 


AUGUST   LANG 


at  that  early  time,  held  as  a  matter  of  learned  tradition 
some  kind  of  conception  of  a  specific  natural  law.  But  in 
distinction  from  iMelanchthoii,  Luther  attributed  to  it  only 
a  subordinate  importance,  Calvin  almost  no  importance  at 
all.  Finally,  the  views  about  the  relation  of  politics.  law 
and  equity  to  the  word  of  God  and  to  Christian  ethics  were 
as  yet  little  elucidated,  though  Calvin  was  the  most  positive 
in  hoping  to  find  the  foundations  for  an  evangelical  Chris- 
tian conception  of  the  state  in  the  ethical  principles  of  the 
Bible — which  principles,  however,  are  not  to  be  identified 
off-hand  with  the  Mosaic  law. 


II 

Under  such  circumstances,  how  did  it  happen  that  it  was 
precisely  decided  Calvinists  who.  first  among  the  men  of 
evangelical  faith,  and  so  early  as  the  sixteenth  century,  not 
merely  developed  natural  law  theoretically,  but  at  the  same 
time,  as  political  publicists,  made  it  a  weapon  in  the  conflicts 
of  the  time?  Before  we  seek  the  explanation,  however,  we 
must  briefly  recall  tlie  fact  itself.  It  is  a  question  here  pri- 
marily of  the  so-called  "Monarchomachist"  writers  and  jur- 
ists—not all  of  the  Reformed  faith,  but  some  also  Jesuit- 
Catholic  (of  the  latter  we  shall  speak  further  on)— who  in 
the  religious  wars  of  the  sixteenth  century  drew  from  the 
principle  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  the  revolutionary 
conclusion  of  a  right  of  active  resistance  towards  contract- 
breaking  rulers.  Among  the  Calvinists,  besides  the  Re- 
former John  Knox^"  should  he.  mentioned  particularly  the 
Scotchman  George  Buchanan,  the  Frenchmen  Hubert  Lan- 
guet  (author,  under  the  pseudon>'m  Junius  Brutus,  of  Vindx- 
ciac  contra  tyratntos),  Francois  Hotman  (Francogallia), 
and  Lambert  Daneau,  and  the  German  Johannes  Althusius. 
The  last-named — born  in  1537  in  tlie  territory  of  Wittgen- 


THE   REFORMATION    AND   NATURAL   LAW 


7i 


stfin.  from  158  >  1604  teacher  of  law  in  the  Reformed 
University  at  H  rn.  from  1604  till  he  died  syndic  of  the 
city  of  Emden-  ;..ve  to  the  tendencies  of  the  Monarcho- 
machi,  in  his  Politi  s,  appearing  in  1603.  the  methodically 
scholastic,  and  at  the  same  time  completest  and  most  thor- 
ough-going expression.  Otto  Gierke,  in  his  lxx)k,  Joh. 
Althushis  und  die  Entwicklung  dcr  mturrechtlkhen  Staats- 
thcoricn  (Breslau.  1880),  has  the  merit  both  of  rescuing  the 
teachings  of  Althusius  himself  from  the  dust  of  oblivion  and 
of  assigning  them  their  place  in  the  general  historical  devel- 
opment of  law  from  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  significance  of  the  questions  there 
under  discussion  becomes  sufficiently  evident  from  the  sin- 
gle remark  of  Gierke^*  to  the  effect  that  a  remarkable  agree- 
ment just  in  a  number  of  fundamental  and  distinctive  ideas 
renders  it  probable  that  the  Politics  of  Althusius  was  read 
and  made  use  of  by  Rousseau  for  his  Contrat  social. 

The  following  is  a  very  rough  sketch  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Monarchomachi  concerning  the  state.  We  shall  disre- 
gard their  more  or  less  serious  differences  from  each  other, 
and  depend  substantially  upon  the  best-defined  and  most 
completely  developed  doctrines  of  Althusius.  In  the  hands 
of  the  Monarchomachi  the  state  loses  more  and  more  of  its 
theocratic  character.  True,  government  is  regarded  as  hav- 
ing its  power  from  God ;  but  it  has  it  indirectly,  not  directly. 
Between  it  and  God  there  stands  a  legal  transaction  of  nat- 
ural law.  For  natural  law  postulates  an  original  natural 
condition  when  there  was  no  state,  when  men  lived  in  com- 
plete freedom  and  equality,  indeed  with  community  of  goods. 
The  stale  did  not  take  its  rise  until  a  double  contract  had 
been  freely  concluded — the  social  contract  and  the  gov- 
ernmental contract.  By  the  social  contract — the  model  of 
Rousseau's  Contrat  social — the  community  of  men  becomes 


74 


AIGLST    LANG 


fiT  the  first  time  a  legal  Ixjily;  as  such  it  then,  by  the  second 
contract,  delegates  the  government  to  the  rulers.  The 
terms  of  the  govcrnnienta!  contract  c<»ul<l.  it  is  true,  he  inter- 
pretei]  in  two  ways.  It  might  Ije  said,  in  the  first  place,  as 
was  done  for  example  by  Bodinus,  the  famous  French  abso- 
hitistic  teacher  of  law,  of  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, that  by  this  contract  the  sovereignty  was  once  for  all 
fully  and  unconditionally  transferred  to  the  ruler.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  original  right  of  the  people  might  be 
granted  a  pcnnanent  precedence  over  against  the  holder 
of  the  state  jwwer.  In  adopting  the  latter  interpretation 
the  Monarchomachi  are  a  unit.  For  them  the  ruler  is 
merely  the  highest  officer  of  the  people,  holding  his  office 
by  contract.  His  right  to  exert  the  ()ower  of  the  state  is 
independent,  it  is  true,  but  at  tlie  same  time  conditional  and 
revocable.  He  has  onlv  a  munus  sub  conditionc  et  stipula- 
tioiic:  he  is  merely  mandatarius.'-  Althusius  supported  the 
limitaiion  of  the  power  of  the  ruler  in  his  logical  radicalism 
with  the  proposition  tliat  the  sovereignty,  the  majesty,  is  by 
its  definition  an  indivisible  unity,  which  can  belong  only  to 
one  of  the  two  powers,  the  people  or  the  ruler.  But  since  the 
prerogatives  of  sovereignty  are  as  necessary  to  the  nature 
and  existence  of  the  social  organism,  populus  universus  in 
corpus  unum  synihioticuin  c.r  pluribus  minoribus  cotuiocia- 
fiouibus  coHSflcialus,  as  life  is  an  inalienable  possession  of 
every  ninn."''  tlicrefore  in  the  governmental  contract  those 
prerogatives  must  have  remained  in  possession  of  the  people. 
But  beside  them  there  can  be  no  full,  unlimited  monarchical 
sovereignty,  but  in  the  last  analysis  only  a  chief  business- 
manager.  To  this  is  added  still  a  further  deduction,  which 
again  appears  in  an  especially  incisive  form  in  Althusius. 
As  in  the  governmental  contract,  so  also  liefore  that  in  the 
social  contract,  the  individual  surrendered  only  so  many 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


75 


rights  as  were  necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  gov- 
ernmental ends.  Therefore  there  remain  to  the  individual 
under  every  form  of  government  certain  inalienable  rights 
of  man.  which  from  the  time  of  the  Monarchomachi  on 
played  an  ever  more  important  part  in  various  schools  of 
natural  law,  until  in  the  French  Revolution  they  became, 
as  everyone  knows,  the  battle-cry  that  moved  the  peoples. 
But  in  order  to  make  the  rights  of  the  people  effective,  there 
was  recognized,  even  at  the  beginning  and  by  the  Monarcho- 
machi themselves,  the  need  of  representatives,  estates,  or, 
as  Althusius  calls  them  after  an  expression  used  inciden- 
tally by  Calvin,"'  eijjiors,  who  represent  the  jieuple,  assist  the 
ruler  csi)ecially  in  legislation,  and  restrain  him,  by  force  if 
niTcssary.  when  he  exceeds  Iiis  authority. 

One  needs  only  to  recall  these  propositions  in  order  to 
become  conscious  of  their  revolutionary  character,  but  at 
the  same  time  of  the  fruitful  element  in  them  that  could 
enable  them  gradually  to  produce  the  modern  constitutional 
forms  of  the  state.  Rut  the  motive  which  forced  the  Mon- 
archomachi to  these  theories  is  quite  plain.  Their  teaching 
is  confined  throughout  to  the  political  or  legal  sphere.  Their 
postulation  of  the  rights  of  man,  their  reduction  of  all 
social  and  national  life  to  the  individuals  as  the  constitutive 
factors,  involves  no  contradiction  of  dogma  or  revelation. 
But  forced  as  they  were  into  the  fearful  battle  with  the 
Counter-Reformation,  the  Reformed  Monarchomachi  sought 
merely  an  adequate  justification  of  the  right  of  resist- 
ance against  the  tyrannical  government.  Over  against  a 
state-power  which  without  hesitation  exhausted  all  means 
to  suppress  the  Gospel,  they  too  had  recourse  to  the  last  re- 
sort, to  civil  war.  But  could  that  be  justified?  Now  it  is 
tnie  that  Calvin  in  a  brief  remark  at  the  very  end  of  his 
Institutio'''  had  expressed  himself  to  the  effect  that  where 


76 


AfCrST    LANC. 


there  are  popular  magisirptes.  estates,  wlio  like  the  epliors 
ill  Sjiarta,  or  the  trilnmes  of  the  people  in  Rome,  are  intended 
to  ilianipion  the  rights  of  the  people,  these  lower  officials 
are  justified  in  offering  resistance  to  the  tyranny  of  the  su- 
preme head  of  the  state.  But  this  remark,  however  gladly 
it  was  exploited,  seemed  far  from  being  sufficient ;  for  Calvin 
had  placed  at  the  head  of  his  "Politics"  as  highest  prin- 
ciple the  duty  of  passive  oiiodiencc.  and  had  with  all  energy 
declared  this  principle  to  l)e  the  clear  intention  of  Scrip- 
ture. Therefore,  the  ground  remained  uncertain.  Al- 
though a  way  could  Ije  found  to  transcend  the  mere  passive 
resistance,  simply  by  the  abundant  use  of  the  Old  Testament, 
yet  that  was  continually  hindered  by  the  great  authority  of 
the  Biblical  scholar  of  Geneva.  Therefore,  in  order  to  ar- 
rive at  a  plain  and  fimi  position,  recourse  was  taken  to  natu- 
ral law.  Here  was  found  what  was  needed;  only  on  this 
foundation  could  the  Old  Testament  examples  of  resistance 
against  tyrannical  power  develop  their  full  strength;  it 
was  deemed  certain  that  in  connection  with  the  natural-law 
doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  the  law  of  the 
Decalogue  was  at  the  same  time  finding  its  first  perfect  ap- 
plication to  politics. 

^■et  almost  at  the  same  time  at  which  the  Monarchomachi. 
in  order  to  attain  a  firm  legal  foundation  for  resistance 
against  the  anti-Reformation  governments,  sanctioned  nat- 
ural law,  natural  law  forced  itself  forward  also  out  of  inter- 
confessional  conflicts  into  Reformed  Protestantism— I  mean, 
through  the  book  of  the  Anglican  divine,  Richard  Hooker, 
Of  the  I.azi's  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity  Eight  Hooks.'"^  This 
work  appeared  in  a  numlier  of  parts  consecutively— the  first 
four  books  in  1594,  the  very  copious  fifth  book  in  1597,  the 
last  three  books  not  till  many  years  after  the  early  death  of 
the  author   (1600),  under  the  restoration  of  Charles  H. 


THE    KEFORMATION    AND    NATURAL   LAW 


77 


The  genuineness  of  the  last  tliree  books  has  been  questioned, 
but  without  sufficient  reason,  since  the  same  style  and  the 
same  peculiar  type  of  thinking  prevail  throughout.  Hooker's 
work  lias  received  a  sympathetic  estimation  from  Leo- 
pold von  Ranke  in  an  essay  entitled,  Zxir  Gcschiclitc  der 
politischcn  Thcoricn,''''  principally  from  the  point  of  view 
that  it  was  written  in  defence  of  the  ecclesiastical  supremacy 
of  the  English  king  over  against  Rome.  But  this  judg- 
ment gives  an  entirely  incorrect  picture  of  the  origin  and 
purpose  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Laws.  The  book  did  not  grow 
out  of  the  conflict  with  Rome,  but  out  of  the  spiritual  unrest 
into  which  the  Anglican  world  under  Elizabeth  was  thrown 
by  the  rising  Puritanism.  Hooker,  a  man  of  the  second 
generation  (born  1553),  the  pupil  of  Bishop  Jewel  of 
Salisbury,  who  was  the  first  defender  of  the  Anglican  form 
of  the  Church  as  a  happy  mean  between  Catholicism  and 
(Reformed)  Protestantism,  set  himself  the  task,  as  he 
repeatedly  reminds  us  and  as  the  whole  content  of  his  book 
undeniably  testifies,  of  justifying  Anglicanism  against  the 
criticism  of  the  Puritans  and  Presbyterians.  In  this  defense 
it  was  a  question  chiefly  of  the  Anglican  ceremonies  and  the 
Anglican  constitution.  Accordingly,  Hooker  deals  with  the 
former  in  books  iv  and  v,  and  with  the  latter  in  books  vi-viii 
(concerning  the  presbyterial-episcopal  constitution  and  the 
question  of  the  supremacy)  ;  the  discussions  of  the  separate 
points  are  preceded  by  a  philosophical  substructure  in  the 
first  three  books:  concerning  the  nature  of  laws,  the  au- 
thority of  Scripture,  and  the  idea  of  the  Church. 

The  chief  lever  of  the  Puritan  criticism  was  the  radical 
Reformed  doctrine  of  Scripture  to  the  effect  that  absolutely 
everything  must  be  based  upon  God's  word,  that  the  Scrip- 
ture alone  must  dec'  le  about  doctrine  and  life,  about  Church 
and  state.    Hooker  seeks  to  oppose  these  claims  first  of  all 


7^ 


AUGUST    LANG 


by  limiting  the  authority  of  Scripture.  It  is  true,  he  ap- 
proves the  rejection  of  tracHtion,  and  also  approves  the 
doctrine  of  the  sufficiency  of  Scripture;^*  but  he  holds  that 
luinian  aids,  the  studies  of  learned  men,  also  councils,  are 
indispensable  for  the  purpose  of  determining  what  Scripture 
teaches.^"  The  Scripture  is  indeed  the  foundation  of  all 
things,  but  the  authority  of  man  is  the  key  that  unlocks  its 
meaning.  Nor  did  the  opposing  party,  Hooker  claims,  have 
any  better  riglit  to  say  that  their  teaching  was  the  pure 
truth  of  God ;  they  too  dejiended  in  their  interpretation  of 
Scripture  upon  human  opinion.  Further,  Hooker  calls  at- 
tention to  tlie  differing  character  of  the  contents  of  Scrii> 
ture.  Of  course,  everjthing  that  is  necessary  to  salvation 
is  revealed  in  it,  but  it  docs  not  by  any  means  afford  a  clear 
prccei)t  of  the  divine  will  for  every  trifle  of  daily  life.*" 
Indeed,  Hooker  even  ventures  the  assertion  that  there  are 
ni.ittiTs  which  in  tlicmst'lvcs  are  inditTerent  from  the  ethico- 
religinus  point  of  view."'  At  any  rate,  not  everything  in 
Scripture  is  eternally  obHg.ntnry;  a  great  deal  in  the  Bible 
depends  upon  the  teniporar\'  circumstances  and  was  pre- 
scri!)C(l  for  those  circumstances  alone.  The  Gospel  is  eternal, 
but  not  the  rites  and  ceremonies."* 

However  reasonal)le  many  of  these  propositions  may  ap- 
pear to  tis.  Honker  was  nevertheless  fully  conscious  that, 
despite  all  such  means,  he  could  scarcely  make  it  credible, 
under  tlie  dogmntic  view  of  Scripture  that  then  prevailed, 
that  the  .Anglican  ceremonies  and  a  form  of  government 
with  leanings  towards  Catholicism  could  stand  iK-fore  the 
forum  of  the  Bible  as  well  as  could  the  claims  of  the  Pres- 
byterians. Therefore,  he  too  had  recourse  to  an  additional 
aid.  namely,  to  the  law  of  reason  and  nature.  Even  in  mat- 
ters of  revelation,  we  cannot  do  without  the  reason:  only 
rational  reflection  can  make  us  certain  what  God's  word  is. 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


79 


The  testimonium  spiritus  sancti  internum  is  not  sufficient  to 
insure  the  autliority  of  the  Word ;  for  the  operations  of  the 
Spirit  are  by  their  nature  obscure  and  must  be  tested  by  the 
reason  before  tlieir  genuineness  can  be  settled.  For  a  legis- 
lation such  as  is  demanded  by  the  situation  of  the  English 
pef)ple,  the  mere  precepts  of  the  Bible  are  insufficient ;  we 
obtain  something  useful  only  from  Scripture  and  reason 
togetiier.*"  Man  has  within  himself  a  law  of  reason,  which 
in  every  individual  case  points  out  what  is  good,  and  that, 
too,  with  compelling  force,  so  that  it  must  be  done."  This 
law  of  reason  corresponds  to  the  operations  of  nature,  it  is 
the  law  of  nature."  In  it  the  moral  faculty  of  man  finds 
expression,  and  it  is  therefore  universally  valid;  to  it  the 
positive  laws,  which  owe  their  origin  to  definite  legislative 
acts,  whether  of  a  human  state  or  of  God,  stand  related  as 
regulations  that  cannot  be  obligatory  for  ever.**  Among 
the  latter  Hooker  includes  certain  "supernatural  duties".*^ 
The  law  of  nature  as  the  natural  light  of  reason  does  not,  it 
is  true,  embrace  all  necessar>'  laws;  above  all.  it  cannot  be 
kept  without  the  continual  help  and  cooperation  of  God  ;** 
but  still  it  can  be  recognized  without  the  assistance  of  Reve- 
lation. Standing,'  upon  this  theologico-philosophical  founda- 
tion. Hooker  accordingly  derives  the  origin  of  states  purely 
by  natural  law  from  a  primitive  social  contract,  from  which, 
it  is  true,  he  does  not  clearly  distinguish  the  governmental 
contract."*  With  regard  to  the  terms  of  the  latter,  however, 
he  maintains,  like  the  Monarchomachi,  that  the  individual 
did  not  completely  surrender  his  native  right  of  self-govern- 
ment and  that  the  legislative  power  still  remains  in  substance 
in  the  hands  of  the  community.  A  king  who  does  not  base 
his  laws  upon  the  general  consent  is  a  tyrant;  the  people, 
moreover,  declares  its  consent  through  its  representatives, 
the  parliaments.'"  But  since  in  Hooker's  opinion  the  Church 


So 


AlGfST    I.ANG 


is  included  among  the  political  associations  to  which  laws 
are  given  in  this  way."'  he  finally  ventures  the  conclusion: 
king  and  parliament  have  the  full  right  to  issue  such  legal 
regulations  for  the  Anglican  Church  as  seem  to  them  suit- 
able, and  if  these  regulations  turn  out  to  be  diflferent  from 
those  of  other  churches  and  peoples,  this  is  to  l)e  explained 
by  the  requirements  of  the  time  and  of  the  nation. 

So  Hooker  found  in  natural  law  the  most  valuable  ally 
for  the  defense  of  Anglicanism  against  the  assaults  of  the 
Puritans.  On  the  other  hand,  the  consequences  of  this  point 
of  view  could  not  fail  to  apjiear.  True,  the  Anglican  is 
willing  to  subtract  nothing  from  the  absolute  necessity  of 
the  suj)ernatural-mystical  w<iy  of  redemption  through  the 
Son  of  God.  and  maintains  further  that  the  knowledge  of 
this  way  is  to  be  obtained  only  in  a  supernatural  manner."* 
But  if  reason  and  nature  alone  make  it  possible  to  distin- 
guish between  the  eternally  valid  elements  in  Revelation  and 
the  {lerisliahle  admixtures  that  were  added  to  it  in  corre- 
spondence to  temporary  needs,  it  can  readily  lie  seen  how 
precarious  the  position  has  thereby  iKcome.  This  uncer- 
tain attitude  even  diminished  Hooker's  Protestant  firmness 
against  Rome;  the  Papal  Church  also  is  for  him  a  church 
of  Christ,  although  with  many  errors,  which  we  pray  God  to 
takf  from  her."''  Tims  we  have  in  Hooker,  leaving  out 
of  account  his  opposition  to  monarchical  absolutism,  all 
the  elements  which  later,  in  the  English  Revolution,  brought 
.\iii;Iicisni  to  disaster — the  tendency  towards  Catholicism, 
the  Ix-ginnings  of  the  latitudinarianism  of  a  Laud  and  of 
other  high-church  representatives  of  the  system  of  the 
Stuarts.  Rut  we  nuist  not  forget  that  all  this  grew  not 
without  an  inward  necessity  out  of  the  conflict  with  Puritan- 
ism ;  for  the  latter  was  unable  in  its  rigid  Biblicism  to  adapt 
itself  to  the  needs  of  the  ever  more  consciously  active  relig- 


THE   REFORMATION    AND   NATURAL   LAW 


8l 


ions  spirit  of  the  English  people.  The  uncompromising 
jus  divinum  called  the  jus  naturae  with  a  certain  necessity 
into  the  arena. 

The  English  latitndinarianism  had  on  the  Continent  its 
more  original  and  more  vigorous  parallel  in  Arminianism. 
But  if  in  England  latitudinarianism  and  natural-law  ideas 
fiimied  a  union,  so,  as  everyone  knows,  the  Remonstrant 
Hugo  Grotius  l)ecame  the  scientific  founder  of  the  modern 
school  of  natural  law.    Nothing  more  natural  than  this  coin- 
cidence !    Arminianism  was  dogmatic  criticism,  criticism  of 
the  one  central  dogma  of  Calvinism;  and  that  not  on  the 
grounil  of  a  strong  new  religious  motive,  but  on  the  ground 
of  the  humanistic-scientific  subjectivity  of  highly  refined 
culture.    This  criticism  could  not  stop  with  one  dogma ;  it 
had  to  tone  down  the  entire  orthodox-Reformed  view  of  life. 
To  that  end.  Grotius  could  scarcely  have  chosen  anything 
apparently  less  dangerous  and  at  the  same  time  in  its  almost 
unlimited  possibilities  more  effective  than  his  natural  law. 
And  yet.  however  disintegrating  the  effect  of  Grotius'  Three 
Books  concerning  the  Law  of  War  and  Peace  upon  the 
early  Reformed  view  of  the  world  and  of  life,  it  cannot  be 
emphasized  strongly  enough  that  he  too  followed  not  only 
a  noble  purpose,  but  also  an  actual  compulsion  of  circum- 
stances.    When  in  1625  he  published  his  work  in  Paris, 
Gennany  was  bleeding  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the  Neth- 
erlands also  had  no  certain  peace  with  Spain,  and  in  general 
frightful  wars,  both  civil  and  foreign,  had  torn  almost  all 
countries  of  Europe  for  fifty  years.     At  that  time,  in  the 
midst  of  conflicts,  this  man  raised  his  voice  for  law;  his 
expressed  purpose  was  to  guide  the  fighters  towards  hu- 
manity by  teaching  them  that  even  in  war  there  are  legal 
conditions  which  must  be  respected,  and  that  war  exists 
merely  to  prepare  for  peace.     This  purpose,  however,  ap- 


8_' 


AUGl'ST    LANG 


peared  inifxissiljle  of  attainment  merely  by  an  appeal  to  the 
ius  dh-inum,  the  divine  commamls  of  justice  and  iieaceful- 
ness.  For  the  wars  of  that  time  were  waged  just  on  account 
of  Revelation  and  the  differing  interpretations  of  it:  this 
method  of  urging  i)eace  would  have  meant  simply  becoming 
a  partisan  to  the  conflict.  Only  what  belonged  to  all  of 
humanity  in  common,  only  what  existed  before  all  parties 
and  was  recognized  by  all.  in  a  word,  only  natural  law 
seemed  adapted  to  the  need.  Accordingly  Cirotius  profjosed 
for  his  '«o()k  the  second  task  of  bringing  the  principles  of 
natural  law.  in  clear  distinction  from  positive  law,  into  sci- 
entific form.**  The  title  of  his  book,  it  is  true,  called  to 
mind  primarily  only  the  »i«  gentitun,  which  had  formerly 
been  regarded  rather  as  an  apfx-ndix  to  natural  law  proper.*" 
But  by  skilful  arrangement,  in  accordance  with  which  the 
first  book  is  devoted  to  the  legal  admissibility  of  war,  the 
second  to  its  causes,  and  the  thirfl  to  tlie  manner  of  con- 
ducting it  and  to  the  conclusion  of  peace.  Grotius  was  able 
to  weave  into  his  exposition  almo^^t  the  ntire  private  and 
internal  law  of  the  state. 

The  influence  of  the  work  is  thus  explained.  For  two 
hundred  years  after  the  appearance  of  the  De  iurc  belli  ct 
pads  of  Grotius,  almost  the  whole  of  jurisi)rudcmc  was 
controlled  by  the  natural-law  theories.  And  yet  the  im^hty 
influence  of  the  book  is.  on  the  other  hand,  a  riddle,  for  even 
to  the  eye  of  a  juristic  layman  the  scientific  weaknesses  of 
this  classical  work  of  jurisprudence  become  immediately  ap- 
parent. In  it  the  theological  element  is  still  predominant  to 
an  astonishing  degree:  the  Ixjundaries  l)etween  law  and 
ethics  are  scarcely  determined  at  all.  But  especially,  what 
a  variable  thing  it  is  after  all,  this  natural  law!  First  of  all, 
the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  and  in  general  the  revo- 
lutionary tendencies  of  the  natural  law  of  the  Monarcho- 


Tin;    KKIOKMATION    AND    NATLHAL    LAW 


«3 


machi  are  considera'ily  weakened,  not  without  arbitrariness 
anil  contra<licti(»n.    The  ptuple.  so  Grotius  maintains,  can  in 
the  governmental  contract  veiy  well  have  surrendered  the 
government  to  its  ruler  definitely  and  finally,  juht  as  every 
man  can  enter  the  state  of  private  slavery.**    Still  more  does 
a  kin^j  who  has     )nquered  a  people  through  force  hold  the 
right  of  government  as  his  unconditional  and  even  alienable 
property."^    Against  a  state-i)ower  that  comes  inUt  conflict 
with  natural  or  divine  law.  nothing  more  than  passive  resist- 
anit  ,s  in  any  case  justifiable;**  even  the  infcriores  magis- 
tralus,  the  ephors  of  Althusius.  have  no  higher  competence.*' 
Here,  however,  Grotius  immediately  makes  an  exception: 
if  the  tyranny  of  the  ruler  endangers  the  existence  of  the 
statf.  which  was  established  through  the  primitive  contract, 
then  forcible  resistance  is  permitted  as  a  right  of  neces- 
sity.'»•»    Especially  full  of  contradiction  is  the  relation  of 
Grotius'  natural  law  to  the  divine  commands.    On  the  one 
side,  he  emphasizes  the  fact  that  natural  law  itself,  though 
proceeding  from  the  inward  principles  of  man.  is  from 
God;'<"  indeed,  he  even  ventures  the  assertion,  "Natural 
law  is  so  unchangeable  that  even  God  cannot  change  it".'"» 
In  another  passage,  however,  he  seems  to  suggest  that,  as 
applied  to  certain  materials,  natural  law  has  relaxed  its 
stricttiess  and  adapted  itself  to  the  customs  of  the  time.*"' 
Or  take  another  example.     Grotius  declares  as  a  matter  of 
principle  that  "God  has  made  the  principles  [of  natural  law] 
clearer  through  express  laws"  ;*"*  so  the  revealed  law  would 
be  the  interpretation  of  the  law  of  nature.    But  then  again 
the  divine  law  as  something  positive  and  arbitrary  stands  in 
contrast  with  the  natural  law;*"'  indeed,  it  is  repeatedly 
asserted  that  natural  law  and  the  Gospel  (he  means  the 
ethical  regulations  of  the  Gospel)  are  by  no  means  identical : 
it  is  possible  for  a  thing  to  be  strictly  forbidden  in  the  Gos- 


m 

'  i  r 

II 


MICROCOPY    RESOLUTION    TEST   CHART 

lANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    21 


1.0 


I.I 


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2.2 


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1.8 


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^     APPLIED  IIVMGE 


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f^oc^es'er,    Neor    York  14609        USA 

(71h)   *fe     ^  0300  -  Phonp 

{'16)   286  -   5989  -  Fq^ 


84 


AUGUST    LANG 


pel  which  is  permitted  by  natural  law — for  example,  poly- 
gamy.*"" Something  similar  is  true  of  slavery,  which  the 
natural  law  of  Grotius  permits  without  scruple.*"'^ 

These  examples  are  sufficient  to  illustrate  tlie  attenuation 
of  the  moral  judgment,  which,  already  bound  up  with  the 
casuistic  method  of  Grotius,  becomes  glaring  through  the 
contrast  between  natural  law  and  Revelation.  Already  there 
is  beginning  to  appear  that  way  of  thinking  to  which  reason 
and  nature  are  everything.  Scripture  truth  nothing  but  an 
unimportant  historical  expression  of  them.  Yet,  however 
much  fault  may  be  found  with  the  undertaking  of  the 
learned  Remonstrant,  that  undertaking  is  primarily  to  be 
understood  as  arising  from  the  necessity  of  constructing  for 
the  religious  parties  that  were  lacerating  one  another  some 
sort  of  common  basis  of  law  and  of  peace. 

After  the  book  of  Grotius,  natural  law  began  its  triumph- 
ant course;  it  penetrated  into  almost  all  Protestant  move- 
ments. A  Hobbes  employed  it  in  order  to  deduce  with  still 
greater  incisiveness  than  Bodin  the  absolute  right  of  abso- 
lutism; the  Independents,  Roger  Williams  and  the  poet 
Milton,  by  means  of  it  supported  their  demands  for  civil  and 
religious  liberty.  We  have  no  further  interest  in  following 
up  all  the  various  forms  assumed  by  the  natural-law  theory ; 
only  one  classical  representative  of  that  theory,  the  philo- 
sopher John  Locke,  may  finally  be  mentioned  in  passing. 
First,  however,  we  may  offer  some  general  remarks  in  ex- 
planation of  his  doctrine,  with  regard  to  which  the  recent 
book  of  a  French  writer,  Bastide,  affords  valuable  informa- 
tion.*'** In  spite  of  Williams,  Milton  and  other  Independ- 
ents, the  great  English  Revolution  stands  by  no  means  under 
the  standard  of  natural  law.  On  the  contrary,  Weingarten 
(however  antiquated  his  book  on  the  English  churches  of 
the  Revolution'"^  may  be  in  other  respects)  is  correct  in  his 


THE    REFORMATION    AND   NATURAL    LAW 


85 


fundamental  thesis,  when  he  sees  in  the  Revolution  the  last 
mighty  attempt  to  establish  the  theocratic  principle,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  crisis  of  the  theocracy.  The  Puritan 
army  of  the  saints  fought  against  the  absolutistic,  catholiciz- 
ing and  latitudinarian  tendencies  for  divine  truth  and 
divine  regulation  of  the  Church  and  state,  under  the  con- 
viction that  it  was  thereby  guaranteeing  to  the  conscience 
the  free  worship  of  God.  But  when  the  victory  had  been 
won,  it  became  evident  in  the  so-called  Barebones  Parliament 
of  1653  that  the  enthusiasts,  in  spite  of  all  their  faith  in  the 
Bible,  lacked  clear  and  positive  ends  and  were  incapable  of 
establishing  the  new  order  of  things.  Hence,  after  Crom- 
well too  had  passed  away  without  having  established  a  per- 
manent reorganization,  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts  became 
a  necessity.  All  the  achievements  of  the  great  conflict  would 
have  been  lost  if  the  follies  of  Charles  II  and  James  II.  and 
the  threatening  phantom  of  the  reintroduction  of  Catholic- 
ism, had  not  for  a  moment  extinguished  the  internal  aibinites 
between  Whigs  and  Tories,  and  made  possible  the  glorious 
Revolution  of  1688  with  the  accession  of  William  of  Orange. 
Now,  through  the  Bill  of  Rights,  the  aristocratic-constitu- 
tional form  of  government  in  England  was  definitely  estab- 
lished, and  at  the  same  time  the  religious  conditions  most 
happily  settled  in  such  a  way,  that,  while  Anglicanism  con- 
tinued to  be  the  state  Church,  the  dissenting  religious  parties 
were  granted  a  tolerance  that  was  at  first  limited  but  later 
became  increasingly  extensive. 

For  the  reorganization  of  England,  hoWv'ver,  natural  law 
offered  the  more  or  less  clearly  recognized  theoretical  basis. 
Natural  law  appeared  as  though  of  its  own  accord,  where 
the  saints  of  the  Barebones  Parliament  had  waited  in  vain 
for  illumination  through  the  Spirit  and  through  Revelation. 
The  Bill  of  Rights  was  in  fact  such  a  governmental  contract 


86 


AUGUST    LANG 


between  ruler  and  subjects  as  natural  law  referred  to  primi- 
tive times,  and  John  Locke,  the  son  of  a  Puritan  father  as 
well  as  the  adherent  and  friend  of  the  latitudinarian,  not  to 
say  skeptical  elder  Shaftesbury,  justified  the  Revolution  of 

1688  with  opinions  which,  althougli  lij  no  means  already  the 
common  property  of  the  Ens:^lish  people,  were  destined  in 
many  respects  to  become  such.  Of  Locke's  writings,  there 
come  in  question  in  the  first  place  The  Fundamental  Consti- 
tutions of  Carolina,  and  then  the  Letter  concerning  Tolera- 
tion and  T1V0  Treatises  of  Government,  which  appeared  in 

1689  but  were  in  part  composed  earlier.""  Like  all  adhe- 
rents of  natural  law,  Locke  here  derives  the  origin  of  the 
state  from  the  social  and  the  governmental  contracts.  But  in 
so  doing  he  emphasizes,  like  the  Monarchomachi  before  him, 
the  innate  rights  of  man.  "liberty  and  property" ;  the  primi- 
tive men  in  forming  a  union  surrendered  only  so  much  of 
their  rights  as  is  necessary  for  the  protection  of  life  and 
property.  The  state  is  in  essence  only  a  legally  constituted 
organization,  whose  compulsion  does  not  extend  further 
than  is  required  by  the  above-mentioned  tasks,  or.  as  Locke 
also  expresses  it,  by  the  common  good.  Within  the  state, 
Locke  regards  the  churches  as  purely  corporations,  similar 
to  the  guilds  or  to  the  learned  societies;  to  them,  even  in- 
cluding Catholics  and  Socinians  or  other  free-religious  so- 
cieties, is  due  complete  liberty  to  constitute  their  worship, 
form  of  government  and  dogmas  as  they  think  best.  Only 
the  atheists,  whose  unbelief  endangers  the  trustworthiness 
of  oaths,  as  well  as  all  religious  movements,  which,  by  tran- 
scending the  spiritual  sphere,  threaten  the  stability  and  peace 
of  the  state,  must  be  suppressed  by  force.  And  the  trouble- 
makers, Locke  thinks,  are  only  the  fanatically  intolerant, 
domineering  preachers  and  priests.  Thus  entered  into  the 
modern  liberalism  at   its  beginning  the  hatred  of  priests 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL   LAW 


87 


and  theologians  that  is  still  in  part  characteristic  of  it. 
But,  in  general,  Locke's  adjustment  between  state  and 
Church  certainly  cannot  give  complete  satisfaction;  the 
purpose  of  the  state  as  it  is  restricted  by  Locke  is  too  narrow 
and  is  contradicted  by  all  history.  But  still  less  can  the 
churches  attain  a  full  development  on  the  basis  of  the  mere 
right  of  association — perhaps  the  Independents  might  do  so, 
but  certainly  not  the  Calvinists  and  least  of  all  the  Catholics. 
In  Locke's  notion  of  the  Church,  too  little  place  is  given  to 
the  institutional  element,  to  the  recognition  that  the  Church 
is  primarily  a  public  institution  with  divine  authority  and  a 
divine  function.  A  closer  examination  reveals  the  deeper 
cause  of  these  defects  in  Locke's  philosophico-religious  posi- 
tion. As  is  well  known,  he  is  a  moderate  deist ;  that  is,  there 
are  for  him  two  sources  for  the  apprehension  of  truth,  the 
reason  and  Revelation.  By  examining  both  (in  the  Essay 
concerning  Human  Understanding  and  The  Reasonableness 
of  Christianity),  he  thinks  he  has  discovered  that  many 
things  in  life  prevent  us  from  attaining  certitude;  we  must 
therefore  often  be  satisfied  with  mere  probability."^  Our 
highest  duty  is  therefore  humility  and  love.  In  this  way 
the  demand  for  tolerance  is  based  upon  human  weakness. 
Therein,  however,  is  revealed  the  Achilles  heel  of  the  entire 
system.  The  doctrine  of  universal  reason,  into  which  in  the 
age  of  Deism  and  of  the  "Enlightenment"  the  natural-law 
theories  developed  more  and  more,  did  not  fill  its  adherents 
with  absolute,  impregnable  certainty ;  therefore  that  doctrine 
necessarily  dissipated  and  destroyed  more  than  it  built  up. 
Even  in  a  Locke,  a  keen  eye  can  detect  the  seeds  of  those 
destructive  tendencies  which  later  in  France  and  the  French 
Revolution  exhibited  their  fearful  explosive  power.  But 
that  ought  never  to  cause  us  to  forget  that  the  natural-law 
theories  were  for  the  England  of  the  seventeenth  century 


88 


AUGUST   LANG 


again  to  a  certain  extent  a  necessity.  As  circumstances 
stood,  those  theories  alone  were  able  to  conserve  the  toler- 
ance which  was  the  result  of  the  great  Revolution;  they 
have  therefore  contributed  their  full  share  towards  the 
happy  reorganization  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  consti- 
tution of  England. 

Ill 

We  pause  here.  We  have  seen  how  natural  law,  despite 
the  rather  unfavorable  attitude  of  Calvin,  pours  itself  like 
an  irresistible  stream  into  Reformed  Protestantism,  attains 
a  decisive  importance  in  its  vital  problems,  becomes  funda- 
mental in  the  political  constitutions  produced  by  it,  and  in 
general  enters  as  one  of  the  most  important  factors  into  the 
spirit  of  the  "Enlightenment"  and  of  the  entire  modern 
period.  We  are  now,  I  think,  in  a  position  to  form  a  final 
judgment  concerning  natural  law  in  its  relation  to  the 
Reformation. 

The  first  thing  that  I  have  to  notice  is  that  natural  law 
is  for  the  Reformation  a  part  of  tradition,  more  particularly 
an  inheritance  from  the  Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  former  fact  can  be  at  once  sunnised,  so  soon  as  one 
observes  how  much  as  a  matter  of  course,  indeed  how 
naively,  Luther  refers  to  natural  law,  and  lets  it  appear  in 
varying  colors,  without,  however,  conceding  to  it  any  funda- 
mental importance.  When  Melanchthon  assumed  an  atti- 
tude so  much  more  favorable,  and  permitted  the  circle  of 
ideas  that  is  connected  with  natural  law  and  the  law  of 
nature  to  become  influential  for  his  entire  system,  it  is 
certain  that  his  classical  leanings  contributed  largely  to  that 
end:  but  they  were  not  the  only  motive  and  not  even  the 
proximate  occasion.  It  would  be  highly  incorrect,  we 
believe,  to  suppose  that  the  ideas  of  natural  law  are  a  hu- 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


89 


manistic  inheritance  from  the  ancient  world,  which  was  half 
received  by  Melanchthon  and  then  gradually  emancipated 
itself.  It  is  true,  the  original  source  of  natural  law  lies,  as 
we  all  know,  in  antiquity.  Socrates,  Plato  and  Aristotle 
already  cherished  the  notion  of  a  natural  law  in  distinction 
from  the  arbitrary  laws  of  men.  The  form  of  these  views 
which  was  most  influential  for  the  future  was  contained  in 
the  Stoic  doctrine  of  the  world-reason  and  the  pantheizing 
law  of  nature:  after  Cicero,  under  Platonic  influence,  had 
so  modified  this  doctrine  that  the  natural  laws  inherent  in 
human  nature  received  at  the  same  time  a  theonomic,  di- 
vinely obligating  character. "^  But  aside  from  the  fact  that 
such  teachings  never  remained  uncontradicted  in  antiquity, 
Melanchthon  himself  at  his  first  mention  of  the  natural  laws 
in  the  Loci  of  152 1"^  takes  his  start  from  the  Theologi  and 
Iiirisconsnlti,  that  is,  from  the  schoolmen  and  jurists  of  his 
time,  and  introduces  only  by  comparison  with  these  the  ut- 
terances of  Plato  and  Cicero.  However,  no  matter  how 
Melanchthon's  position  be  conceived,  it  is  impossible  that  a 
theory  of  ancient  philosophy  should  merely  on  Melanch- 
thon's authority,  while  the  other  Reformers  were  at  least 
indifferent,  have  revived  just  after  the  Reformation  with 
such  vigor  and  exerted  such  an  enduring  influence,  if  it  had 
been  dormant  during  the  entire  Middle  Ages. 

Just  the  opposite  is  in  reality  the  case.  From  the  height 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  natural  law  was  a  recognized,  though, 
it  is  true,  also  an  extremely  multiform  doctrine  of  ecclesi- 
astical and  civil  law,  as  well  as  of  scholastic  theology.  So 
early  as  the  Decretum  Gratiani,  we  read:  lus  naturale  est 
commune  omnium  nationum,  eo  quod  ubique  inslinctu  na- 
turae, non  constitutione  aliqua  habetur,  ut  viri  et  feminae 
conjunctio,  liber orum  succcssio  et  educatio,  communis  om- 
nium possessio  et  omnium  una  libertas,  acquisitio  eorum, 


QO 


AUGUST    LANG 


quae  coclo,  terra  mariqne  capiuntur.^^*  Natural  law  is  in 
the  Decretiim  at  one  time  identified  with  the  revealed  law 
{quod  in  lege  et  cvangelio  contineiur),  more  particularly, 
with  the  saying  of  Christ,  "Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them" ;  at  another  time 
it  is  assigned  an  independent  place  between  the  divine  and 
the  human  law.  With  increased  weight,  though  also  in 
equally  uncertain  terms,"'  natural-law  theories  are  set  forth 
by  Thomas  Aquinas.  In  that  part  of  his  Summa  Theologiae 
which  is  devoted  to  the  law,  he  treats  successively  the  lex 
aeterna,  lex  naturalis  and  lex  huvtana.^^^  The  law  of  nature 
is  participatio  legis  aeternae  in  rationali  creatura;^^'  hence 
it  is  contained  prima  in  lege  aeterna,  secundaria  in  naturali 
judicatorio  rationis  humanae}^^  So  it  oscillates  between 
God's  command  and  the  law  of  reason.  From  the  Gospel 
or  the  lex  nova,  the  lex  indita  naturalis  differs  again  through 
its  lack  of  the  donum  superadditum  gratiae.^^^  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  the  foundation  of  all  human  laws,  so  that  if  a  law 
differs  from  the  law  of  nature,  it  is  no  longer  law  but  cor- 
ruption of  the  law.^"" 

Accordingly,  Thomas  in  the  treatise,  De  regimine  princi- 
pum  refers  also  the  origin  of  the  state  to  the  ius  naturale. 
A  certain  independence  is  thereby  conceded  to  the  state,  in 
that  it  is  regarded  no  longer  as  a  product  of  sin  (which  was 
still  the  view  of  Bonaventura),  but  as  the  product  of  a 
reasonable  impulse  in  human  nature ;  but  at  the  same  time  in 
that  way  it  is  delivered  over  to  the  control  of  Church  and 
Papacy  as  constituting  the  higher  sphere  of  grace  and  faith. 
But  under  the  influence  of  Thomas,  the  theories  of  natural 
law  became  more  and  more  the  common  property  of  medi- 
aeval thought.  So  early  as  the  year  1300,  they  were  seized 
upon  by  the  popular  political  writers,  both  parties  using 
them  as  a  weapon  in  the  great  conflict  between  Church  and 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


91 


State — a  fact  for  which  Richard  Scholz,  in  his  instructive 
investigations  concerning  Die  Publisistik  sur  Zeit  Philipps 
des  Schoncn,  has  produced  ample  proofs.'*'  But,  in  general, 
a  glance  into  Gierke's  Althusins  or  into  the  third  volume  of 
his  Deutsches  Genossenschaftsrecht  is  sufficient  to  show  how 
in  the  second  half  of  the  Middle  Ages  almost  all  schools  of 
jurisprudence  were  permeated  by  these  views.  All  the  indi- 
vidual doctrines  that  have  their  roots  in  natural  law — the 
doctrines  of  the  primitive  contract  and  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people,  and  the  principle  of  representation — existed 
long  Ijefore  the  Reformation  in  more  or  less  thoroughly- 
developed  forms.  The  strict  curialistic  school,  as  well  as  the 
teachings  of  Marsilius  of  Padua,  which  contended  for 
popular  freedom  and  the  national  state ;  the  adherents  of  the 
conciliar  idea,  as  well  as  pre-Reformers  like  Wiclif ;  above 
all,  finally,  the  humanistic  school  of  jurisprudence,  which 
flourished  in  Italy  and  then,  in  the  century  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, in  France,  and  which  was  cultivated  by  teachers  and 
friends  of  Calvin  like  Alciati  and  Francois  de  Connan — all 
these  had  accustomed  themselves  to  erect  their  conception 
of  the  state  upon  a  natural-law  foundation. 

But  such  a  unanimity  of  the  jurists,  theologians  and 
humanists  is  by  no  means  accidental,  for  it  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  the  entire  mediaeval  Catholic  system  of  faith  and 
life  is  characterized  by  the  separation  between  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural — the  two  spheres  are  built  up  one  on 
top  of  the  other  like  two  stories  of  a  house.  The  natural  is 
the  lower  sphere  of  the  secular,  the  transitory;  it  too  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Creator's  hand  and  is  therefore  not  alto- 
gether sinful,  but  it  must  be  held  in  check  by  a  higher  power. 
The  supernatural,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  eternal,  holy, 
divine,  it  is  that  which  rules  the  lower  sphere  and  thereby 
gives  it  an  organic  part  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.    For  an 


h 


92 


AIGIST    LANG 


example  we  do  not  need  to  go  further  than  the  doctrine  of 
the  primitive  state  of  man.  The  dona  naturae  are  supple- 
mented by  the  dona  supcrnaturalia.  Similarly,  the  natural 
light  of  reason,  with  its  natural  knowledge  of  God,  is  the 
lower  sphere  in  comparison  with  the  supernatural  revelation. 
Saving  faith  in  the  latter  can  be  attained  only  through  the 
sacramental-magic  inpouring  of  the  illuminatio  spiritus.  In 
the  same  way,  over  against  the  lex  lunurae.  which  is  merely 
explained  and  elucidated  by  the  lex  Mosis,  stands  the  lex 
Christi  or  the  lex  gratiae;  in  connection  with  justification, 
over  against  the  pracparatio  ad  gratiam  afforded  by  work- 
righteousness,  the  infusio  gratiae;  in  ethics,  over  against  the 
pracccpta  destined  for  all,  the  consilia  of  monasticism.  The 
relation  of  Church  and  state  is  exactly  similar.  The  Church 
is  the  divine  establishment,  the  institute  of  salvation  clothed 
with  supernatural  authority.  The  state  is  a  mere  product 
of  man's  natural  social  requirement,  it  proceeded  from  a 
primitive  contract  by  virtue  of  natural  law.  It  must  there- 
fore necessarily  subordinate  itself  to  the  Church  if  the  ends 
of  the  one  civitas  Dei  are  to  be  attained.  Indeed,  the  Church, 
being  the  guardian  and  interpreter  of  the  natural  as  well  as 
of  the  divine  law,  can  depose  those  rulers  who  in  her  opinion 
are  infringing  the  primitive  contract,  and  can  summon  the 
subjects  to  revolution.  Such  was  the  practice  of  the  Curia, 
at  least  when  the  political  situation  promised  success  in 
making  good  the  claim ;  such  was  the  more  or  less  decided 
teaching  of  the  theorists. 

Natural  law  with  all  its  political  consequences  must  ac- 
cordingly, so  far  as  one  may  speak  here  at  all  of  religious 
and  ecclesiastical  determination,  be  regarded,  despite  its 
beginnings  in  antiquity,  as  a  thoroughly  Catholic  product. 
The  proof  of  this  view  is  made  still  stronger  by  the  fact  that 
simultaneously  with  the  Reformed  Monarchomachi,  Cath- 


THE    UEFORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


93 


olic  Monarchomachi  appeared,  among  whom  the  Jesuits  Uke 
the  Spaniard  Juan  Mariana'^*  did  not  shrink  even  from 
directly  instigating  the  assassination  of  tyrants.  But  since, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  theories  of  natural  law  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  central  doctrine  of  the  "Enlightenment",  which 
has  exerted  an  extensive  influence  upon  the  entire  spirit 
of  modern  times  in  the  political,  ethico-religious  and  intel- 
lectual spheres,  a  prospect  is  opened  up  which  is  diametri- 
cally opposed  to  the  historical  construction  of  Troltsch.  Not 
the  Reformation,  which  in  its  chief  representatives  met  nat- 
ural law,  if  not  with  out-and-out  rejection,  at  least  with  cool 
indifference,  is  mediaeval  and  Catholic;  rather  has  modern 
liberalism  been  influenced  in  its  development  by  a  group  of 
ideas  which  was  an  integral  part  of  the  mediaeval-Catholic 
view  of  the  world.  At  the  same  time  we  see  by  this  example 
how  little  value  is  to  be  attributed  to  such  general  schemes 
and  catch-words  as  the  one  proposed  by  Troltsch;  for  the 
most  part  they  merely  help  partisans  to  establish  one-sided 
judgments. 

Yet  if  natural  law  has  its  roots  in  mediaeval  Catholicism, 
that  only  brings  us  to  the  chief  question,  How  could  doc- 
trines that  were  Catholic  in  spirit  be  appropriated  in  Refor- 
mation territory  at  such  an  early  time  and  with  so  little 
hesitation  ?  This  might  be  understood  in  the  case  of  Hooker, 
for  his  opposition  to  Puritanism  brought  him  still  nearer  to 
Rome  than  the  genius  of  his  Church  would  in  itself  suggest, 
so  that  he  cites  Thomas  Aquinas  quite  expressly  as  a  wit- 
ness for  his  theory. '28  But  how  is  it  to  be  comprehended 
in  the  other  Protestants,  particularly  the  most  anti-Catholic 
of  all,  the  decided  Calvinists  ?  For  Melanchthon,  no  doubt 
academic  tradition  and  the  demands  of  education  exercised 
the  determining  influence.  He  saw  how  the  doctrines  of 
natural  law  were  set  forth  in  all  schools,  even  by  those  who 


94 


AIGIST    LANG 


wer:  uciitrnl  in  tlie  coiiHict  lictween  the  confessions,  namely, 
by  the  humanists;  he  found  those  doctrines  tau^Iit  in  tlie 
works  of  ancient  writers,  hke  Cicero  whom  he  i)rized  so 
highly ;  he  heard  also  how  Luther  spoke  of  natural  law  with- 
out opposing  it.  and  even  on  occasion  made  use  of  it  in  his 
way— all  this  no  doubt  combined  to  remove  Melanchthon's 
objections,  which  later  on.  after  he  had  become  a  synergist, 
did  not  weigh  very  heavily  with  him  anyhow.    The  men  of 
the  Reformed  faith  may  well  have  been  influenced  by  certain 
other  things.     Perhaps  even  the  variability  of  the  ideas  in 
question,  and  their  remoteness  from  the  central  truths  of  re- 
ligion which  made  them  appear  almost  like  a  mere  scientific 
hypothesis,  may  have  helped  to  commend  them.     Further- 
more, the  theories  of  natural  law  could  be  regarded  as  a 
principle  of  individualism,  which  would  naturally  be  con- 
genial to  the  Calvinists.    But  this  was  for  them  certainly  not 
the  principal  reason,  for  their  individualism  had  such  firm 
root  in  their  particular  type  of  religion,  that  it  needed  no 
further  support.  The  point  of  view  which  was  finally  deci- 
sive for  the  men  of  the  Reformed  confession  was  rather,  we 
believe,  the  one  which  was  indicated  in  our  investigation, 
when  we  spoke  of  the  inward  necessity,  the  compulsion  of 
circumstances,  under  which  the  entrance  of  natural  law  in 
all  four  of  the  phases  discussed  in  our  second  section  took 
place.     This  inward  necessity  can  be  made  clear  by  some 
such  s,a'neral  survey  as  the  following. 

The  Reformation  at  its  very  beginning  found  itself  in  the 
presence  of  problems  and  exigencies  of  indefinite  range,  first 
of  all.  conflicts  of  purely  religious  and  theological  char- 
acter—doctrinal, liturgical,  and  constitutional  conflicts.  What 
an  amount  of  spiritual  strength  was  consumed  even  by  these 
conflicts !  How  much  there  was  which  went  wrong !  What 
unrest,  what  losses  these  conflicts  produced!    And  yet  the 


THE    REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL    LAW 


95 


problems  which  then  appeared  could  be  settled  by  reference 
to  the  fundamental  religious  principle  of  Protestantism,  and 
on  the  whole  were  in  fact  settled  in  a  truly  Protestant  way. 
Much  more  difficult  and  dangerous,  however,  was  a  second 
adjustment,  which  lay  more  on  the  periphery  of  religious 
truth  and  yet  was  no  less  necessary — namely  the  adjustment 
to  the  general  ethical,  political  and  social  problems,  to  science 
and  art.  This  adjustment,  I  say,  was  unavoidable,  for  if 
Protestantism,  over  against  the  mediaeval-Catholic  world,  in- 
volves a  new  world-view,  then  there  must  necessarily  be  a 
Protestant  science  of  politics,  a  Protestant  philosophy  and 
science,  a  Protestant  art.  This  conclusion  cannot  be  avoided 
through  the  assertion  that  the  Reformation  achieved  just 
the  liberation  of  the  secular  activities  of  the  spirit  from  the 
control  of  the  mediaeval  church  and  their  restoration  to  their 
own  immanent  principles ;  for  then  that  freedom  wou'd  still 
have  to  be  grounded  more  in  detail,  the  boundary-lines 
would  have  to  be  drawn  to  show  where  the  ethico-religious 
claims  of  the  Gospel  end  and  the  rights  of  the  free  spiritual 
principle  begin. 

For  such  an  adjustment,  however,  in  the  very  nature  of 
things,  time  is  required;  it  cannot  be  accomplished  by  one 
man  or  by  one  generation.  It  was,  indeed,  a  thankworthy 
undertaking,  when  Calvin  in  his  Institutio  did  not  entirely 
ignore  politics,  but  the  results  were  of  such  a  kind  that  they 
did  not  give  satisfaction  even  negatively,  on  the  question  of 
the  obedience  of  subjects  and  the  right  of  resistance,  much 
less  positively.  But  now  the  tasks  and  problems  of  culture 
came  upon  the  young  evangelical  Church  in  a  storm.  Not 
so  much  upon  the  Lutherans.  In  their  small  states,  where 
there  was  little  cultural  movement,  they  were  able  to  settle 
down  and  persevere  for  two  centuries  on  the  basis  of  the 
theocratic  idea  as  purified  by  the  Reformation,  and  in  an- 


96 


AUGUST    LANG 


alogy  to  the  traditional  forms  of  Church  and  state,  as  though 
all  those  questions  of  adjustment  were  really  already  settled 
by  Melanchthon's  organization  of  the  universities  and  of  the 
sciences.     The  Reformed,  on  the  contrary,  were  obliged  to 
fight  tiie  hardest  battles  for  existence;  then,  after  the  final 
victory,  they  had  new  states  to  found  both  at  home  and  in 
the  wilderness ;  above  all,  they  had  to  settle  the  question  of 
tolerance  between  the  different  parties  that  had  arisen  in 
their  own  camp.     But  the  tasks  were  met  by  the  will  to 
accomplish  them.    Calvin  had  inspired  in  his  disciples  that 
energy  of  piety,  which  abhors  all  half-way  measures,  which 
boldly  endeavors  to  make  all  the  affairs  of  life  subject  to 
Christ,  the  Head  and  Lord.     In  this  congregation  of  the 
elect,  the  individualism  of  the  Reformation  reached  its  cli- 
max, and  despite  all  subjection  under  God's  command,  there 
was  developed  a  thirst  for  liberty,  which  tolerated  nothing 
that  came  in  its  way  except  after  free  and  earnest  investi- 
gation.    The  chief  merit  of  Calvinism  is  that  it  brought 
men's  powers  into  the  liveliest  activity,  undertook  the  most 
diversified  tasks  with  vigorous  confidence,  and  so  with  im- 
patient energy  carried  humanity  forward  on  its  way.     But 
the  impulse  to  freedom  can  work  itself  out  to  the  good  of 
humanity  only  when  it  remains  conscious  of  its  limitations. 
But  what  was  needed  to  keep  it  within  bounds,  the  firm 
principles  about  the  relation  of  the  Reformation  to  the  forces 
of  culture— to  the  state,  science  and  art— was  lacking,  and 
how  could  it  be  attained  all  at  once  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
unrest  of  the  time?     Regarded  in  this  way,  we  believe, 
the  appearance  of  natural  law  becomes  comprehensible.     A 
doctrine  of  the  state  constructed  on  evangelical  principles 
was  not  in  existence.    But  such  a  doctrine  was  imperatively 
demrnded  jy  the  need  of  the  time.     Men  needed  to  have 
clearness  about  the  relation  cf  the  ruler  to  the  subjects,  about 


THE   REFORMATION    AND    NATURAL   LAW 


97 


the  problem  of  Church  and  state,  about  the  relation  between 
different  churches  in  the  same  country.  No  wonder  that  in 
the  lack  of  a  conception  of  the  state  revised  in  the  light  of 
fundamental  evangelical  ideas,  men  had  recourse  to  the 
political  theory  taught  in  the  traditional  jurisprudence,  with- 
out heeding  the  fact  that  that  theory  had  an  origin  foreign 
to  the  Reformation  and  involved  tendencies  and  conse- 
quences which  would  lead  away  from  the  Reformation. 
These  tendencies,  of  course,  became  apparent  later  in  slowly- 
developing  after-effects,  and  then,  especially  after  the  spirit- 
ual enervation  sustained  in  the  protracted  religious  wars, 
they  could  not  fail  gradually  to  dissipate  and  destroy  the 
Reformation's  basis  of  faith. 

Unless  all  indications  are  deceptive,  the  progress  of  events 
was  similar  in  the  case  of  other  cultural  questions.  The 
desire  for  knowledge,  the  desire  for  activity,  which  was 
experienced  by  the  individual  after  he  had  been  liberated 
through  the  Reformation,  plunged  itself  into  all  problems 
of  the  spiritual  life  of  man,  became  absorbed  in  the  tradi- 
tional manner  of  their  treatment,  and  was  all  too  quickly 
satisfied  with  solutions  which  were  not  in  agreement  with 
the  fundamental  ethico-religious  factors  of  the  practical  re- 
ligious life  of  the  Reformation.  The  reaction  did  not  remain 
absent.  The  evangelical  life  of  faith  became  shallower,  in- 
stead of  deepening  itself  and  developing  in  all  directions. 
Here,  however,  the  opposition  between  the  modem  spirit 
and  the  Reformation  would  seem  to  receive  an  explanation 
which  grows  out  of  an  organic  understanding  of  the  histor- 
ical development.  It  is  not  true  that  the  Gospel  of  the 
Reformation  has  been  outstripped;  but  spiritual  culture  in 
general  has  infinitely  advanced,  while  its  permeation  with 
ethico-religious  principles  in  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation 
has  not  kept  pace.  If  it  is  true  that  the  religious  spirit  of  the 


98 


AUGUST   LANG 


Reformation  in  passing  through  Deism,  the  "Enlighten- 
ment" and  Rationalism,  was  moving  on  a  downward  path, 
the  reason  for  its  deterioration  was  that  the  adjustment  be- 
tween the  Reformation  and  culture  was  neither  brought  to  a 
satisfactory  conclusion  nor  even  earnestly  enough  attempted. 
Nevertheless,  we  hope  that  such  an  adjustment  may  yet  be 
accomplished ;  the  better  it  succeeds,  so  much  the  more  com- 
pletely will  the  difficulties  of  our  present  religious  situation 
disappear. 


CALVIN  AND  COMMON  GRACE. 


By  Herman  Bavinck. 

Christianity  has  from  the  beginning  laid  claim  to  be  the 
one  true  religion.     Already  in  the  Old  Testament  the  con- 
sciousness exists  that  Jehovah  alone  is  Elohim  and  that  the 
gods  of  the  heathen  are  things  of  naught  and  vanity ;  and  in 
the  New  Testament  the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only 
true  God,  whom  the  Son  reveals  and  declares,  and  access  to 
whom  and  communion  with  whom  the  Son  alone  can  medi- 
ate.    This  conviction  of  the  absoluteness  of  the  Christian 
religion  has  entered  so  deeply  into  the  consciousness  of  the 
Church  that  the  whole  history  of  Christian  doctrine  may  be 
viewed  as  one  great  struggle  for  upholding  it  over  against 
all  sorts  of  opposition  and  denial.  For  the  life  of  the  Church  i 
as  well  as  for  every  individual  man  the  fundamental  ques-  | 
tion  is :   What  think  ye  of  the  Christ?    This  was  the  issue 
in  the  christological  and  anthropological  controversies  of  the 
ancient  Church,  this  the  issue  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation 
and  in  the  age  of  the  "Enlightenment",  and  this  is  still  the 
issue  at  the  present  day  in  the  spiritual  battles  witnessed  by 
ourselves.     No  progress  can  be  marked  in  this  respect :  the 
question  of  the  ages  is  still  the  question  of  our  time,— Is 
Christ  a  teacher,  a  prophet,  one  of  the  many  founders  of 
religions;  or  is  he  the  Only-begotten  from  the  Father,  and 
therefore  the  true  and  perfect  revelation  of  God? 

But  if  Christianity  bears  such  an  absolute  character,  this 
fact  immediately  gives  rise  to  a  most  serious  problem.  The 
Christian  religion  is  by  no  means  the  sole  content  of  history ; 
long  before  Christianity  made  its  appearance  there  existed  in 


lOO 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


Greece  and  Rome  a  rich  culture,  a  complete  social  organism, 
a  powerful  political  system,  a  plurality  of  religions,  an  order 
of  moral  virtues  and  actions.  And  even  now,  underneath 
and  side  by  side  with  the  Christian  religion  a  rich  stream  of 
natural  life  continues  to  flow.  What,  then,  is  the  relation  of 
Christianity  to  this  wealth  of  natural  life,  which,  originating 
in  creatio.i,  has,  under  the  law  there  imposed  upon  it,  de- 
veloped from  age  to  age  ?  What  is  the  connection  between 
nature  and  grace,  creation  and  regeneration,  culture  and 
Christianity,  earthly  and  heavenly  vocation,  the  man  and  the 
Christian  ?  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  this  problem  has  now  for 
the  first  time  forced  itself  upon  us,  owing  to  the  wide  exten- 
sion of  our  world -knowledge,  the  entrance  of  the  heathen 
nations  into  our  field  of  vision  and  the  extraordinary  pro- 
gress made  by  civilization.  In  principle  and  essence  it  has 
been  present  through  all  the  ages,— in  the  struggle  between 
Israel  and  the  nations,  in  the  contest  between  the  Kingdom 
Df  Heaven  and  the  world-power,  in  the  warfare  between  the 
foolishness  of  the  cross  and  the  wisdom  of  the  world. 

To  define  this  relation,  Scripture  draws  certain  lines  which 
it  is  not  difficult  to  trace.  It  proceeds  on  the  principle  that) 
for  man  God  is  the  supreme  good.  Whatever  material  or 
ideal  possessions  the  world  may  oflfer,  all  these  taken  to- 
gether cannot  outweigh  or  even  be  compared  with  this  great- 
est of  all  treasures,  communion  with  God;  and  hence,  in  case 
of  conflict  with  this,  they  are  to  be  unconditionally  sacri- 
ficed. "Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  thee?  and  there  is  none 
upon  earth  that  I  desire  besides  thee."  This,  however,  does 
not  hinder  earthly  possessions  from  retaining  a  relative 
value.  Considered  in  themselves  they  are  not  sinful  or  un- 
clean ;  so  long  as  they  do  not  interfere  with  man's  pursuit 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  they  are  to  be  enjoyed  with 
thanksgiving.     Scripture  avoids  both  extremes,  no  less  that 


CALVIN    AND    COMMON    GRACE 


lOI 


of  asceticism  on  the  one  hand  than  that  of  libertinism  on  the 
other  hand.  The  recognition  of  this  as  a  principle  appears 
most  clearly  in  its  teaching  that  all  things,  the  entire  world 
with  all  its  treasures,  including  matter  and  the  body,  mar- 
riage ?nd  labor,  are  created  and  ordained  of  God ;  and  that 
Christ,  o..  hough,  when  He  assumed  a  true  and  perfect  human 
nature,  ne  renounced  all  tliese  things  in  obedience  to  God's 
command,  yet  through  His  resurrection  took  them  all  back 
as  henceforth  purified  of  all  sin  and  consecrated  through 
the  Spirit.  Creation,  incarnation  and  resurrection  are  the  I 
fundamental  facts  of  Christianity  and  at  the  same  time  the 
bulwarks  against  all  error  in  life  and  doctrine. 

It  needs  no  pointing  out,  however,  that  in  the  first  age 
Christians  had  to  assume  a  preponderantly  negative  attitude 
towards  the  culture  of  their  time.  They  were  neither  suffi- 
ciently numerous  nor  on  the  whole  sufficiently  influential  in 
the  world  to  permit  of  their  taking  an  active,  aggressive 
part  in  the  aflfairs  of  state  and  society,  of  science  and  art. 
Besides  this,  all  institutions  and  elements  of  culture  were  so 
intimately  associated  with  idolatry  and  superstition  that 
without  oflfense  to  conscience  it  was  impossible  to  take  part 
in  them.  For  the  first  Christians  nothing  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  Graeco-Roman  world  but  persecution  and  re- 
proach. Consequently,  nothing  was  left  for  them  but  to 
manifest  their  faith  for  the  time  being  through  the  passive 
virtues  of  obedience  and  patience.  Only  gradually  could  the 
Church  rise  to  the  higher  standpoint  of  trying  all  things  and 
holding  fast  to  that  which  is  good,  and  adopt  an  eclectic 
procedure  in  its  valuation  and  assimilation  of  the  existing 
culture. 

Often  in  the  past,  and  again  in  our  own  time  has  the 
charge  been  brought  against  the  Christian  Church,  that  in 
applying  this  principle,  it  has  falsified  the  original  Gospel. 


102 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


Harnack  fiiicis  in  the  history  of  doctrine  a  progressive  Hel- 
lenizing  of  original  Christianity.  Hatch  regards  the  entire 
Cliristian  cultus,  particularly  that  of  the  sacraments,  in  the 
liglit  of  a  degeneration  from  tlie  primitive  Gospel.  To 
Sohni  the  very  idea  of  ecclesiastical  law  appears  contradic- 
tory to  the  essence  of  the  Christian  Church.  But  such  as- 
sertions partake  of  gross  exaggeration.  If  in  all  these  re- 
spects nothing  but  degeneration  is  to  be  found,  it  will  be 
easy  to  show  that  to  a  considerable  degree  the  degeneration 
must  have  set  in  with  the  Apostles  and  even  with  the  writers 
of  the  synoptic  Gospels,  as  has  been  freely  acknowledged 
by  not  a  few  writers  of  recent  date.  The  Christian  Church 
is  indeed  charged  with  having  falsified  the  original  Gospel, 
but  those  who  bring  the  charge  retain  practically  nothing  of 
this  Gospel  or  are  at  least  unable  to  say  in  what  this  Gospel 
con  -isted.  It  is  as  a  rule  made  out  to  have  been  a  simple 
doctrine  ot  morals  with  an  ascetic  tinge.  Then  the  problem 
arises,  how  such  a  Gospel  could  ever  have  come  into  real 
contact  with  culture,  especially  to  the  extent  of  suflFering 
corruption  from  culture.  A  conception  is  thus  formed,  both 
of  the  original  Gospel  and  of  the  attitude  of  the  Christian  ! 
Church  toward  pagan  culture,  which  is  based  wholly  on  ' 
fancy  and  is  at  war  with  all  the  facts. 

For  not  only  is  the  Gospel  not  ascetic,  but  even  the  Christ- 
ian Church,  at  least  in  its  first  period,  never  adopted  this 
standpoint.  However  much  it  might  be  on  its  guard  against 
paganism,  it  never  despised  or  condemned  natural  life  as  in 
itself  sinful.  Marriag':  and  family  life,  secular  calling  and 
military  estate,  the  sv.  .>aring  of  the  oath  and  the  waging  of 
war,  government  and  state,  science  and  art  and  philosophy,— 
all  these  were  recognized  from  the  beginning  as  divine  insti- 
tutions and  as  divine  gifts.  Hence  theology  early  began  to 
form  relations  with  philosophy ;  the  art  of  painting,  as  prac- 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


103 


ticed  in  the  catacombs,  attached  itself  to  the  symbols  and 
figures  of  antiquity ;  architecture  shaped  the  churches  after 
pagan  models;  music  availed  itself  of  the  tunes  which 
Graeco-Roman  art  had  produced.  On  every  hand  a  strong 
effort  is  perceptible  to  bring  the  new  religion  into  touch  with 
all  existing  elements  of  culture. 

It  was  possible  for  the  first  Christians  to  do  this  because 
of  their  firm  conviction  that  God  is  the  Creator  of  heaven 
and  earth,  who  in  times  past  has  never  left  Himself  without 
witness  to  the  heathen.  Not  only  was  there  an  original  reve- 
lation, which,  though  in  corrupted  form,  yet  survived  in  tra- 
dition ;  it  was  also  regarded  as  probable  that  certain  philoso- 
phers had  possessed  a  degree  of  acquaintance  with  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Jews.  But  in  addition  to  this  there  existed  in 
paganism  a  continued  revelation  through  nature  and  the  rea- 
son, in  heart  and  conscience, — an  illumination  of  the  Logos, 
a  speech  from  the  wisdom  of  God  through  the  hidden  work- 
ing of  grace.  Anima  naturcUiter  Christiana,  the  man  is 
older  than  the  philosopher  and  the  poet,  TertuUian  ex- 
claimed, thus  formulating  a  truth  which  lived  in  the  hearts 
of  all.  No  doubt  among  the  heathen  this  wisdom  has  in 
many  respects  become  corrupted  and  falsified;  they  retain 
only  fragments  of  truth,  not  the  one,  entire,  full  truth.  But 
even  such  fragments  are  profitable  and  good.  The  three  sis- 
ters, logic,  physics  and  ethics,  are  like  unto  the  three  wise 
men  from  the  east,  who  came  to  worship  in  Jesus  the  perfect 
wisdom.  The  good  philosophical  thoughts  and  ethical  pre- 
cepts found  scattered  through  the  pagan  world  receive  in 
Christ  their  unity  and  center.  They  stand  for  the  desire 
which  in  Christ  finds  its  satisfaction;  they  represent  the 
question  to  which  Christ  gfives  the  answer ;  they  are  the  idea 
of  which  Christ  furnishes  the  reality.  The  pagan  world,  espe- 
cially in  its  philosophy,  is  a  pedagogy  unto  Christ ;  Aristotle, 


I04 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


like  John  the  Baptist,  is  the  forerunner  of  Christ.     It  be- 
hooves the  Christians  to  enrich  their  temple  with  the  vessels 
of  the  Egyptians  and  to  adorn  the  crown  of  Christ,  their 
king,  with  the  pearls  brought  up  from  the  sea  of  paganism. 
In  saying  this,  however,  we  by  no  means  wish  to  imply 
that  the  attitude  of  the  Church  towards  the  world  has  at  all 
times  and  in  every  respect  measured  up  to  the  Church's  high 
calling.    A  priori  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  it  should,  in- 
asmuch ai  every  human  development  shows  abnormal  traits 
and  the  life  of  every  individual  Christian  is  tainted  with  er- 
ror and  sin.     When  the  Church  of  Rome  maintains  that 
the  Gospel  has  been  preserved  by  her  and  unfolded  in  its 
original  purity,  this  claim  is  made  possible  only  through  as- 
cribing infallibility  to  the  Church.     But  by  the  very  act  of 
subscribing  to  this  dogma,  Rome  acknowledges  that  without 
such  a  supernatural  gift  the  development  could  not  have  been 
kept  pure.     Further,  by  attributing  this  gift  to  the  Pope 
alone,  Rome  admits  the  possibility  of  error  not  only  in  the 
ecclcsia  discens  but  also  in  the  ecclesia  docens,  even  where 
the  latter  convenes  in  oecumenical  council.     And  Rome's 
confining  the  effect  of  this  infallible  guidance  to  papal  de- 
liverances ex  cathedra  involves  the  confession  that  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  system,  as  a  whole,  with  all  its  teaching  and 
practice,  enjoys  no  immunity  from  corruption.     The  dogma 
of  papal  infallibility  is  not  the  ground  or  cause,  but  only  one 
of  the  many  consequences  and  fruits  of  the  system.     And 
this  system  itself  has  not  grown  up  from  one  principle;  it 
has  been  developed  in  the  course  of  the  ages  by  the  coopera- 
tion of  numerous  factors,— a  development  the  end  of  which 
has  not  yet  been  reached. 

Although  Roman  Catholicism  has  been  built  up  out  of  va- 
ried, even  heterogeneous  elements,  it  nevertheless  forms  a 
compact  structure,  a  coherent  view  of  the  world  and  of  life, 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


»05 


shaped  in  all  its  parts  by  a  religious  principle.  This  relig- 
ion embraces  in  the  first  place  a  series  of  supernatural,  in- 
scrutable mysteries,  chief  among  which  are  the  Trinity  and 
the  Incarnation.  These  truths  have  been  entrusted  to  the 
Church  to  be  preserved,  taught  and  defended.  To  discharge 
these  functions  the  Church,  in  the  person  of  the  Pope,  as  suc- 
cessor of  Peter,  needs  the  gift  of  infallibility.  The  doctrines 
are  authoritatively  imposed  by  the  Church  on  all  its  mem- 
bers. The  faith  which  accepts  these  mysteries  has  for  its 
specific  object  the  Church-dogma;  it  does  not  penetrate 
through  the  dogma  to  the  things  themselves  of  which  the 
dogma  is  the  expression ;  it  does  not  bring  into  communion 
with  God ;  it  does  not  represent  a  religious  but  an  intellectual 
act,  the  assensus,  the  fides  historica.  Faith  is  not  a  saving  t 
power  in  itself,  but  is  merely  preparatory  to  salvation ;  never-  ' 
theless,  it  is  something  meritorious  because  and  in  so  far  as 
it  is  an  act  of  submission  to  ecclesiastical  authority. 

The  Church,  however,  is  not  merely  the  possessor  of  su- 
pernatural truth ;  in  the  second  place  it  is  also  the  depository 
and  dispenser  of  sujiernatural  grace.  As  the  Church  doc- 
trine is  infinitely  exalted  above  all  human  knowledge  and 
science,  so  the  grace  kept  and  distributed  by  the  Church  far  i 
I  transcends  nature.  It  is  true  this  grace  is,  among  other 
things,  gratia  medicinalis,  but  this  is  an  accidental  and  adven- 
titious quality.  Before  all  else  it  is  gratia  elevans,  some- 
thing added  to  and  elevating  above  nature.  As  such  it  en- 
tered into  the  image  of  God  given  to  Adam  before  the  Fall, 
and  as  such  it  again  appears  in  the  restoration  to  that  origi- 
nal state.  In  view  of  its  adding  to  exahed  nature  a  super- 
natural element,  it  is  conceived  as  something  material,  en- 
closed in  the  sacrament,  and  as  such  dispensed  by  the  priest. 
Thus  every  man  becomes,  for  his  knowledge  of  supernatural 
truth  and  for  his  reception  of  supernatural  grace,  that  is,  for 


io6 


IfERMAN    BAVINCK 


his  heavenly  salvation,  absolutely  dependent  on  the  Church, 
the  priest  and  the  sacrament.     Extra  ccclesiam  nulla  salus. 

But  even  this  grace,  which,  to  be  sure,  remains  subject  to 
loss  and  recovery  until  the  end  of  life,  does  not  assure 
man  of  attainment  to  fellowship  with  God.  All  it  does  is 
to  impart  to  him  the  ixswer  whereby,  if  so  choosing,  he  may 
merit,  through  good  works,  supernatural  salvation,  the  visio 
Dei.  Since  work  and  reward  must  be  proportionate,  the 
good  works  which  merit  supernatural  salvation  must  all  be 
of  a  specific  kind  and  therefore  need  to  be  defined  and  pre- 
scribed by  the  Church.  The  Church,  besides  being  the  depos- 
itory of  truth  and  the  disfjcnser  of  grace,  is  in  the  third 
place  also  law-giver  and  judge.  The  satisfactions  which  the 
Churcli  imposes  are  according  to  the  character  of  the  sins 
committed.  The  rapidity  or  slowness  with  which  a  man  at- 
tains to  perfection,  how  much  time  he  shall  spend  in  purga- 
tory, how  rich  a  crown  he  will  receive  in  heaven,— all  this 
depends  on  the  numl^er  of  extraordinary,  supernatural  works 
which  he  performs.  Thus  a  spiritual  hierarchy  is  created. 
There  exists  a  hierarchy  in  the  world  of  angels,  and  a  hier- 
archy in  the  ecclesiastical  organization,  but  there  is  a  hier- 
archy also  among  the  saints  on  earth  and  the  blessed  in 
heaven.  In  an  ascending  scale  the  saints,  divided  into  or- 
ders and  r.^nks.  draw  near  to  God.  and  in  proportion  as  they 
become  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  are  admitted  to  the 
worship  and  adoration  of  the  deity. 

In  view  of  what  has  been  said  it  is  evident  that  truth, 
grace  and  good  works  bear,  according  to  Rome,  a  specific, 
supernatural  character.  And  because  the  Church  is  the 
God-appointed  depository  of  all  these  blessings,  the  relation 
between  grace  and  nature  coincides  with  that  between  the 
Church  and  the  world.  The  world,  the  state,  natural  life, 
marriage  and  culture  are  not  sinful  in  themselves;    onlv 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


107 


they  are  of  a  lower  order,  of  a  secular  nature,  and.  unless 
consecrated  by  the  Church,  easily  become  an  occasion  for 
sinning.  This  determines  the  function  of  the  Church  with 
reference  to  the  world.  It  is  the  calling  of  the  Church  to 
declare  unto  the  world  that  in  itself  the  world  is  profane, 
but  that  nevertheless,  through  the  consecration  of  the 
Church,  it  may  Income  a  vehicle  of  grace.  Renunciation  of 
the  world  and  sovereignty  over  the  world  with  Rome  spring 
from  one  and  the  same  principle.  The  celibacy  of  the 
priesthood  and  the  elevation  of  marriage  to  the  rank  of  a 
sacrament  are  branches  of  the  same  stem.  The  whole  hie- 
rarchical idea  is  built  on  the  sharp  distinction  between 
nature  and  grace.  Where  the  supernatural  character  of  the 
Church  and  the  efficacy  of  the  sacrament  and  the  priestly 
office  are  concerned,  this  system  brooks  neither  compromise 
nor  concession;  but  aside  from  this,  it  leaves  room  for  a 
great  variety  of  steps  and  grades,  of  ranks  and  orders  in 
holiness  and  salvation.  The  Church  contains  members  that 
belong  to  it  in  body  only,  and  members  belonging  to  it  with 
a  part  of  their  powers  or  with  all  their  powers;  it  makes 
concessions  to  the  weak  and  worships  the  saints;  a  lax  mo- 
rality and  a  severe  asceticism,  an  active  and  a  contemplative 
mode  of  life,  rationalism  and  supernaturalism.  unbelief  and 
superstition  equally  find  a  place  within  its  walls. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  this  system  had 
become  corrupt  in  almost  every  respect.  In  the  sphere  of 
truth  it  had  degenerated  into  nominalistic  scholasticism; 
in  the  sphere  of  grace  into  demoralizing  traffic  in  indul- 
gences ;  in  the  sphere  of  good  works  into  the  immoral  life 
of  priests  and  monks.  Numerous  efforts  were  made  to  rem- 
edy these  faults  and  to  reform  the  Church  from  within. 
But  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  differed  from 
all  these  attempts  in  that  it  not  merely  opposed  the  Roman 


s 

i 


KlS 


II HUMAN    BAVINCK 


system  in  its  excrescences  Init  attacked  it  internally  in  the 
f.ani.Iations  on  which  it  rested  and  in  the  principles  out  of 
whioli  it  iiad  k-cn  <!eveIoi)ed.  The  Reformation  rejected  the 
entire  system,  and  substituted  for  it  a  totally  different  con- 
ception of  Veritas,  gratia,  and  bom  opera.  It  was  led  to 
this  new  conception  not  throu},'h  scientific  retiet  tions  or  phil- 
osophical speculations,  but  through  earnest,  heartfelt  con- 
cern for  the  salvation  of  souls  and  the  jjlory  of  God.  The 
Reformation  was  a  religious  and  ethical  movement  through 
nnd  through.  It  was  born  out  of  the  distress  of  Luther's 
soul. 

When  a  helpless  man.  out  of  distress  of  soul,  looks  to 
the  Gospel  for  deliverance,  the  Gospel  will  appear  to  him 
in  a  totally  new  light.     All  at  orce  it  ceases  to  be  a  set  of 
suix;rnatural,  inscrutable  mysteries  to  be  received  on  ecclesi- 
astical authority,  with  renunciation  of  the  claims  of  reason, 
by  meritorious  assent.     It  straightway  becomes  a  new  Gos- 
pel, good  tidings  of  salvation,  revelation  of  God's  gracious 
and  efficacious  will  to  save  the  sinner,  something  that  itself 
imparts  the  forgiveness  of  sin  and  eternal  life  and  therefore 
is  embraced  by  lost  man  with  joy.  that  lifts  him  above  all 
sin  and  above  the  entire  world  to  the  high  hope  of  a  heavenly 
salvation.     Hence  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  speak  of  the 
Gospel  with  Rome  as  consisting  of  suixjrnatural  mvsteries 
to  be  responded  to  by  man  in  voluntary  assent.    The  Gospel 
is  not  law,  neither  as  regards  the  intellect  nor  as  regards  the 
will ;  it  is  in  essence  a  promise,  not  a  demand  but  a  gift,  a 
free  gift  of  the  divine  favor:  nay.  in  it  the  divine  will  itself 
through  the  Gospel  addresses  itself  to  the  will,  the  heart,  the 
innermost  essence  of  man.  and  there  produces  the  faith 
which  rests  in  this  divine  will  and  builds  on  it  and  puts  its 
trust  in  it  through  all  perils,  even  in  the  hour  of  death. 
By  reason  of  this  new  conception  of  the  Gospel,  which  in 


CALVIN    AND   COMMON   GRACE 


109 


principle  was  but  a  return  to  the  old.  Scriptural  conception, 
it  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  faith  also  should  obtain  a 
totally  new  significance.  If  the  Gospel  is  not  a  Veritas  to 
which  the  gratia  is  added  later  on,  but  is  itself  gratia  in  its 
very  origin,  the  revelation  of  God's  gracious  will,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  instrument  for  making  this  will  effective 
in  the  heart  of  man,  then  faith  can  no  longer  remain  a 
purely  intellectual  assent.  It  must  become  the  confidence 
in  the  gracious  will  of  God,  produced  by  God  himself  in 
man's  heart;  a  surrender  of  the  whole  man  to  the  divine 
grace;  a  resting  in  the  divine  promise;  a  receiving  of  a 
part  in  God's  favor ;  admission  into  communion  with  him ; 
an  absolute  assurance  of  salvation.  With  Rome,  faith  is 
but  one  of  the  seven  preparations,  which  lead  on  to  the  recep- 
tion of  the  gratia  infusa  in  baptism,  and  hence  bears  no  re- 
ligious character;  it  is  :  -ht  but  a  fides  historica,  which 
stands  in  need  of  the  supp  iient  of  love  in  order  to  become 
complete  and  sufficient  unto  salvation.  To  the  Reformers 
faith  from  its  very  first  inception  is  religious  in  nature.  As 
fides  justificans  salvifica  it  differs  not  in  degree  but  in  prin- 
ciple and  essence  from  the  fides  historica.  It  has  for  its  ob- 
ject God  himself,  God  in  Christ,  and  Christ  in  the  garb  of 
Holy  Scripture,  Christum  Erangelio  suo  vestitum  ;*  it  is  in 
its  essence  firtna  certaque  cognitio,^  cordis  magis  qiiam  cere- 
bri, et  affectus  magis  quam  intelligentiae,^  to  be  defined 
rather  as  certitudo  than  as  apprehensio*  Faith  places  beyond 
doubt  Dei  bonitatem  perspicue  nobis  propositam  and  enables 
us  to  stand  before  God's  presence  tranquillis  animis?  Thus  it 
is  seen  to  be  the  principle  of  the  true  fear  of  God,  for  primus 
ad  pietatem  gradus  [est]  agnoscere  Deum  esse  nobis 
Patrem,  ut  nos  tueatur,  gubernet  ac  foveat,  donee  colligat 
in  aeternatn  haereditatem  regni  sui.^ 

To  all  the  Reformers,  therefore,  there  lies  behind  the 


no 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


Gospel  and  behind  faith  the  gracious  and  efficacious  will  of 
God.     Nay,  more  than  this,  in  the  Gospel  and  in  faith  the 
divine  will  is  revealed  and  realized.    This  is  the  reason  why 
the  religious  conception  of  the  Gospel  and  of  faith  is  with 
the  Reformers  most  intimately  connected  with  their  belief 
in  predestination.     We  in  our  time  no  longer  understand 
this.    We  have  lost  the  habit  of  religious  thinking,  because 
we  feel  less  for  ourselves  the  personal  need  of  communion 
with  God,  and  so  feel  less  of  the  impulse  to  interpret  the 
world  from  a  religious  point  of  view.    Instead,  our  age  has 
learned  to  think  in  the  terms  of  natural  science ;  it  has  sub- 
stituted  for  the  divine  will  the  omnipotent  law  and  the 
omnipotent  force  of  nature,  and  thus  thrown  itself  into  the 
arms  of  determinism.    It  claims  to  have  long  since  outgrown 
the  belief  in  predestination.     And  undoubtedly  there  exists 
between  these  two,  however  often  they  may  be  mixed  and 
confounded,  a  difference  of  principle.     Determinism  is  in 
principle  rationalistic ;  it  cherishes  the  delusion  of  being  able 
to  explain  everything  from  the  reign  of  natural  law,  holding 
that  all  existing  things  are  rational  since  reason  perceives 
that  they  could  not  be  otherwise  than  they  actually  are.    Pre- 
destination, on  the  other  hand,  is  a  thoroughly  religious 
conception.     While  able  to  recognize  natural  law  and  to 
reckon  with  the  forces  of  nature,  it  refuses  to  rest  in  this 
or  to  consider  natural  necessity  the  first  and  last  word  of 
history. 

He  who  has  learned  to  regard  communion  with  God  as 
the  supreme  good  for  his  own  person,  must  feel  bound 
to  work  his  way  back,  behind  the  world  and  all  its  phe- 
nomena, until  he  arrives  at  the  will  of  God.  He  must  seek 
an  explanation  of  the  origin,  development  and  goal  of  the 
world-process,  which  shall  be  in  accordance  with  that  will 
and  hence  bear  an  ethico-religious  character.     This  is  the 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


III 


reason  that,  so  soon  as  a  religious  movement  appears  in 
history,  the  problem  of  predestination  comes  to  the  front. 
In  a  way,  this  is  true  of  all  religions,  but  it  applies  with 
special  pertinence  to  the  history  of  the  Christian  religion. 
In  proportion  as  the  Christian  religion  is  distinctly  expe- 
rienced and  appreciated  in  its  essence  as  true,  full  relig- 
ion, as  pure  grace,  it  will  also  be  felt  to  include,  and  that 
directly,  without  the  need  of  dialectic  deduction,  the  con- 
fession of  predestination.  Hence  all  the  Reformers  were 
agreed  on  this  point.  It  is  true  that  with  Luther  it  was 
afterwards,  for  practical  reasons,  relegated  to  the  back- 
ground, but  even  he  never  recanted  or  denied  it.  It  was  in 
the  controversy  about  the  servum  or  liberum  arbitrium  that 
tlie  Reformation  and  humanism  parted  ways  once  for  all. 
Erasmus  was  and  continued  to  be  a  Romanist  in  spite  of  his 
ridicule  of  the  monks.  As  late  as  1537  Luther  wrote  to 
Capito :  nullum  agnosco  mcum  justum  libriim  nisi  forte  de 
libera  arbitrio  et  catechisntum.  The  doctrine  of  predestina- 
tion, therefore,  is  no  discovery  of  Calvin ;  before  Calvin  it 
had  been  professed  by  Luther  and  Zwingli.  It  sprang  spon- 
taneously from  the  religious  experience  of  the  Reformers. 
If  Calvin  introduced  any  modification,  it  consists  in  this, 
that  he  freed  the  doctrine  from  the  semblance  of  harshness 
and  arbitrariness  and  imparted  to  it  a  more  purely  ethico- 
religious  character. 

For,  all  affinity  and  agreement  notwithstanding,  Calvin 
differed  from  Luther  and  Zwingli.  He  shared  neither  the 
emotional  nature  of  the  one  nor  the  humanistic  inclinations 
of  the  other.  When,  in  a  manner  as  yet  but  very  imperfectly 
known  to  us,  he  was  converted,  this  experience  was  imme- 
diately accompanied  by  such  a  clear,  deep  and  harmonious 
insight  into  Christian  truth  as  to  render  any  subsequent 
modification  unnecessary.    The  first  edition  of  the  Institutio 


if: 


I  12 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


which  appeared  in  March,  1 536,  was  expanded  and  increased 
in  the  later  issues,  but  it  never  changed,  and  the  tasl:  which, 
in  his  view,  the  Reformation  had  to  accomplish,  remained 
from  beginning  to  end  his  own  goal  in  life.  While  Luther's 
faitli  was  almost  entirely  absorbed  in  the  fides  jtistificans, 
and  while  Zwingli  one-sidedly  defined  faith  as  fides  viznfi- 
cans  or  rcgcncrans,  Calvin  widened  the  conception  to  that 
of  fidcs^alvificans, — a  faith  which  renews  the  entire  man 
in  his  being  and  consciousness,  in  soul  and  body,  in  all  his 
relations  and  activities,  and  hence  a  faith  which  exercises  its 
sanctifying  influence  in  the  entire  range  of  life,  upon  Church 
and  school,  upon  society  and  state,  upon  science  and  art. 
But  in  order  to  be  able  to  perform  this  comprehensive 
task, — in  order  to  be  truly,  always  and  everywhere  a  fides 
sah'ificans,  it  was  necessary  for  faith  first  of  all  to  be  fully 
assured  of  itself,  and  no  longer  to  be  tossed  to  and  fro  by 
every  wind  of  doubt.  This  explains  why,  more  than  with/ 
Zwingli  and  Luther,  faith  is  with  Calvin  unshaken  convic-jj 
tion,  firm  assurance.  ' 

But  if  faith  is  to  be  such  an  unshaken  assurance  it  must 
rest  on  a  truth  removed  from  all  possibility  of  doubt ;  it  must 
attest  itself  as  rea'  by  its  own  witness  and  power  in  the 
heart  of  man.  A  house  th?t  will  defy  the  tempest  cannot 
be  built  on  the  sand.  Behind  faith,  therefore,  must  lie  the 
truth,  the  will  and  act  of  God.  In  other  words,  faith  is  the 
fruit  or  eflFect  of  election ;  it  is  the  experience  of  an  act  of 
God.  Always  and  everywhere  Calvin  recurs  to  this  will  of 
God.  The  world  with  its  infinite  multitude  of  f'enomena, 
with  its  diversities  and  inequalities,  its  disharmonies  and 
contrasts,  is  not  to  be  explained  from  the  will  of  the  crea- 
ture nor  from  the  worth  or  unworthiness  of  man.  It  is 
true,  inequality  and  contrast  appear  most  pronounced  in 
the  allotment  of  man's  eternal  destinv.    Thev  are,  however. 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


113 


by  no  means  confined  to  this,  but  show  themselves  in  every 
sphere,  in  the  dififerent  places  of  habitation  appointed  for 
men,  in  the  different  gifts  and  powers  conferred  upon  them 
in  body  and  soul,  in  the  difference  between  health  and  sick- 
ness, wealth  and  poverty,  prosperity  and  adversity,  joy  and 
sorrow,  in  the  varying  ranks  and  vocations,  and,  last  of  all, 
in  the  fact  itself  that  men  are  men  and  not  animals.    Let  the 
opponents  of  the  doctrine  of  election,  therefore,  answer  the 
question,  cur  homines  sint  magis  qiiam  boves  aut  asini,  cur, 
qwiiii  in  Dei  manti  esset  canes  ipsos  fingcre,  ad  imagincm 
suam  formaznt.'    The  more  we  reflect  upon  the  world  the 
more  Vit  are  forced  to  fall  back  upon  the  hidden  will  of  God 
and  <^    1  in  it  the  ultimate  ground  for  both  the  existence  of 
the  world  and  its  being  what  it  is.     All  the  standards  of 
goodness  and  justice  and  righteous  recompense  and  retribu- 
tion tor  evil  which  we  are  accustomed  to  apply,  prove  wholly 
inadequate  to  measure  the  world.    The  will  of  God  is,  and 
from  the  nature  of  the  case  must  be,  the  deepest  cause  of  the 
entire  world  and  of  all  the  varietas  and  divcrsitas  found  in 
it.     There  is  no  more  ultimate  ground  for  this  than  the 
absconditum  Dei  consilium^    The  unfathomable  mystery  of 
the  world  compels  the  intellect  and  the  heart,  theology  and 
philosophy  alike  to  fall  back  upon  the  will  of  God  and  seek 
rest  in  it. 

It  frequently  happens,  however,  that  theology  and  phil- 
osophy are  not  contented  with  this.  They  then  endeavor, 
after  the  manner  of  Plato  and  Hegel,  to  offer  a  rational 
explanation  of  the  world.  Or,  while  falling  back  upon  the 
will  of  God.  they  make  out  of  this  will  a  BvOixs  ayvtoa-rot, 
as  is  done  by  Gnosticism,  or  a  blind,  irrational  and  unhappy 
will,  as  is  done  by  Schopenhauer,  or  an  unconscious  and 
unknowable  power,  as  is  done  by  von  Hartmann  and  Spen- 
cer. By  his  Christian  faith  Calvin  was  kept  from  these 
• 


114 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


different  forms  of  pantheism.  It  is  true,  Calvin  upholds 
with  the  utmost  energy  tlie  sovereignty  of  the  divine  will 
over  and  against  all  human  reasoning.  Predestination  be- 
longs to  the  divinac  sapicntiac  adyta  which  man  may  not 
enter  and  in  regard  to  which  his  curiosity  must  remain 
unsatisfied ;  for  they  form  a  labyrinth  from  which  no  one  can 
find  the  e.xit.  Man  may  not  even  investigate  with  impunity 
the  things  God  meant  to  keep  secret.  God  wants  us  to  adore, 
not  to  comprehend,  the  majesty  of  His  wisdom.*  Never- 
theless God  is  not  exlcx.  He  sufficiently  vindicates  His  jus- 
tice by  convicting  of  guilt  those  who  blaspheme  Him  in  their 
own  consciences.  His  will  is  not  absolute  power,  but  ab 
omni  vitio  pura,  suiiuua  perfectionis  regtda,  etiam  legum 
omniwn  Icx}^  And  the  Gospel  reveals  to  us  what  is  the 
content,  the  heart  and  the  kernel,  as  it  were,  of  this  will. 

For  since  the  Fall  nature  no  longer  reveals  to  us  God's 
paternal  favor.  On  every  side  it  proclaims  the  divine  curse 
which  cannot  but  fill  our  guilty  souls  with  despair.  Ex 
uniiidi  cfliispcctu  Patiriii  colUgcrc  non  licet }'^  Aside  from 
the  special  revelation  in  Christ,  man  has  no  true  knowledge 
of  heavenly  things.  He  is  ignorant  and  blind  as  respects 
God,  His  fatherhood  and  His  law  as  the  rule  of  life.  Espe- 
cially of  the  divinac  crga  nos  bcnn'olentiae  certitude  he  is 
without  the  faintest  consciousness,  for  human  reason  neither 
can  attain  nor  strives  to  attain  to  this  truth,  and  therefore 
fails  to  understand  quis  sit  vcrus  Deus,  qualisvc  crga  nos 
esse  fcJit}'-  And  herein  precisely  consists  the  essence  of 
God's  special  revelation  in  Christ,  and  this  is  the  central 
content  of  the  Gospel :  God  here  makes  Himself  known  to 
ns  not  merely  as  our  Creator,  but  as  our  Redonptor}^  He 
does  not  here  tell  us  what  He  is.  to  enable  us  to  indulge  in 
speculation,  but  causes  us  to  know  qualis  sit  et  quid  ejus 
naturae  convcniat}*    The  gratuita  promissio,  the  promissio 


CALVIN    AND    COMMON    GRACE 


Ii: 


miscricordiac,  tlie  libcralis  Icgatio  qua  sibi  Deus  mundum 
rccoHciliat,— these  constitute  the  essence  of  the  Gospel  and 
the  firm  foundation  of  faith.  >'  He  is  a  true  believer,  who, 
firmly  convinced  that  God  is  to  him  a  gracious  and  loving 
Father,  expects  everything  from  His  loving-kindness.  Fi- 
delis  uon  est,  nisi  qui  suae  salutis  secuntati  innixns,  diabolo 
ct  morti  confidcntcr  insultct.^^ 

This  concentration  of  the  G  spel  in  the  promise  of  divine 
mercy  not  only  provided  Calvin  with  a  firm  footing  in  the 
midst  of  the  shifting  opinions  of  his  time,  but  also  widened 
his  outlook  and  enlarged  his  sympathies,  so  that,  while  reso- 
lutely standing  by  his  own  confession,  he  nevertheless  per- 
petually mediated  the  things  that  made  for  unity  and  peace 
among  all  the  sons  of  the  Reformation.     To  be  sure,  the 
conception  usually  formed  of  Calvin  differs  widely  from 
this.     His  image  as  commonly  portrayed  has  for  its  onlv 
features  those  of  cruel  severity  and  despotic  intolerance. 
But  such  a  C(  riccption  does  grave  injustice  to  the  Genevan 
Reformer.    Unfortunately,  he  must  be  held  responsible  for 
the  death  of  Servetus,  although  in  this  respect  he  only  stands 
on  a  level  with  the  other  Reformers,  none  of  whom  had 
entirely  outgrown  all  the  errors  of  their  age.    But  the  Calvin 
who  gave  his  approval  to  the  execution  of  Servetus  is  not 
the  only  Calvin  we  know.     There  is  also  a  far  different 
Calvin,  one  who  was  united  with  his  friends  in  the  bonds  of 
the  most  tender  affection,  whose  heart  went  out  in  sympathy 
to  all  his  suffering  and  struggling  brethren  in  the  faith,  one 
who  identified  himself  with  their  lot,  and  supplied  them  with 
comfort  and  courage  and  cheer  in  their  severest  afflictions. 
We  know  of  a  Calvin  who  without  intermission  labored 
most  earnestly  for  the  union  of  the  divided  Protestants, 
who  sought  God  in  His  Word  alone  and  was  unwilling  to^ 
bind  himself  even  to  such  terms  as  "Trinity"  and  "Person",, 


ii6 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


wh(i  refused  to  subscribe  to  tiie  Xicene  and  Athanasian 
creeds,  who  discountenanced  every  disruption  of  the  Church 
on  the  ground  of  minor  impurities  of  doctrine,  who  favored 
fraternal  tolerance  in  all  questions  touching  the  form  of 
worship.  There  was  a  Calvin,  who,  notwitiistanding  all  dif- 
ferences of  opinion,  cherished  the  highest  regard  for  Luiher, 
Melanchthon  and  Zwingli.  and  recognized  them  as  servants 
of  God :  who  himself  subscribed  to  the  Augsburg  Confession 
and,  reserving  the  right  of  private  interpretation,  acknowl- 
edged it  as  tiie  expression  of  his  own  faith;  who  recom- 
mended the  Loci  of  Melanchthon,  although  differing  from 
him  on  the  points  of  free-will  and  predestination;  who  re- 
fused to  confine  tlie  invisilMe  Church  to  any  single  confes- 
sion, but  recognized  its  presence  wherever  God  works  by 
His  Word  and  Spirit  in  the  hearts  of  men. 

Still  another  injustice,  however,  must  he  laid  to  the  charge 
of  the  average  conception  of  Calvin.  Men  sometimes  speak 
as  if  Calvin  knew  of  nothing  else  to  preach  but  the  decree 
of  predestination  with  its  two  parts  of  election  and  repro- 
bation. The  truth  is  that  no  preacher  of  the  Gospel  has 
ever  surpassed  Calvin  in  the  free,  generous  proclamation 
of  the  grace  and  love  of  God.  He  was  so  far  from  putting 
predestination  to  the  front,  that  in  the  Institutio  the  subject 
does  not  receive  treatment  until  the  third  book,  after  the 
completion  of  the  discussion  of  the  life  of  faith.  It  is  en- 
tirely wanting  in  the  Coiifcssio  of  1536  and  is  only  men 
tioned  in  passing,  in  connection  with  the  Church,  in  the 
Catcchisinus  Gcnrt'cnsis  of  1545.  And  as  regards  reproba- 
tion, before  accusing  Calvin,  the  charge  should  be  laid 
against  Scripture,  against  the  reality  of  life,  against  the 
testimony  of  conscience ;  for  all  these  bear  witness  that  there 
is  sin  in  the  world,  and  that  this  awful  reality,  this  dccretum 
horribilc,  cannot  have  its  deepest  ground  in  tlie  free  will  of 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


117 


man.    And  there  are  still  other  features  in  Calvin's  doctrine 
of  reprobation  to  which  attention  should  be  called.     There 
is  in  the  first  place  the  fact  that  he  says  so  little  about  the 
working  of  reprobation.     The  Institiitio  is  a  work  charac- 
terized by  great  sobriety,  wholly  free  from  scholastic  ab- 
struseness ;  it  everywhere  treats  the  doctrines  of  faith  in  the 
closest  connection  with  the  practice  of  religion.     This  is 
especially  true  of  eschatology.     As  is  well  known,  Calvin 
never  could  bring  himself  to  write  a  commentary  on  the 
Apocalypse,  and  in  his  InstituHo  he  devotes  to  "the  last 
things"  only  a  few  paragraphs.     He  avoids  all  spinosae 
quaestioHcs  with  reference  to  the  state  of  glory,  and  inter- 
prets the  descriptions  given  by  Scripture  of  the  state  .  f  the 
lost  as  symbolical:    darkness,  weeping,  gnashing  of  teeth, 
unquenchable  fire,  the  worm  that  dies  not.— all  these  serve  to 
impress  upon  us  quam  sit  calamitosum  alicnari  ab  omni  Dei 
societate,  and  majcstatcm  Dei  ita  senfire  tibi  adversam  ut 
effugcrc  nequeas  quin  ab  ipsa  urgearis}''    The  punishment 
of  hell  consists  in  exclusion  from  fellowship  with  God  and 
admits  of  degrees. '«    In  connection  with  Paul's  words,  that 
at  last  God  will  be  all  in  all,  it  is  not  forbidden  to  think  of 
the  devil  and  the  godless,  since  in  their  subjection  also  the 
glory  of  God  shall  be  revealed.*" 

But  of  even  greater  significance  is  it  that  with  Calvin 
reprobation  does  not  mean  the  withholding  of  all  grace. 
Although  man  through  sin  has  been  rendered  blind  to  all 
the  spiritual  realities  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  so  that  a 
special  revelation  of  God's  fatherly  love  in  Christ  and  a 
specialis  ilhwiinatio  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  hearts  of  the 
sinners  here  become  necessary.^"  nevertheless  there  exists 
alongside  of  these  a  generalis  gratia  which  dispenses  to  all 
men  various  gifts.21  If  God  had  not  spared  man,  his  fall 
would  have  involved  the  whole  of  nature  in  ruin.  22     As  it 


IIS 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


was.  Ciod  immediately  after  the  I'all  interposed,  in  order 
by  His  common  grace  to  curb  sin  and  to  uphold  in  being  the 
uiikrrsitas  rcrttiii.-^  For  after  all  sin  is  rather  an  advcnti- 
tiii  quulitas  than  a  substau'iaHs  proprictas,  and  for  this 
reason  God  is  opcris  sui  corniptioni  iitngis  itifcnsits  quain 
opcri  siio.'-*  Aitliough  for  man's  sake  the  whole  of  nature 
is  subject  to  vanity,  nevertheless  nature  is  upheld  by  the 
hope  wliich  God  implanted  in  its  heart.-'  There  is  no  part 
of  the  world  in  which  some  s])ark  of  the  divine  glory  does 
not  gliniincr.-"  Though  it  be  a  metaphorical  mode  of  ex- 
pression, since  God  should  not  be  confounded  with  nature, 
it  may  I)e  affirmed  in  a  truly  religious  sense  that  nature  is 
God.-"  Heaven  and  earth  with  their  innumerable  wonders 
.are  a  magnificent  dis])lay  of  the  divine  wisdom."" 
'  Especially  the  human  race  is  still  a  clear  mirror  of  the 
operation  of  God,  an  e.xhibition  of  His  manifold  gifts.^"  In 
every  man  there  is  still  a  si-ed  of  religion,  a  consciousness  of 
God,  wholly  ineradicable,  convincing  all  of  the  heavenly 
grace  on  which  their  life  depends,  and  leading  even  the 
heathen  to  name  God  the  Father  of  mankind.'"  The  super- 
natural gifts  have  been  lost,  and  the  natural  gifts  have  be- 
come corrupted,  so  that  man  by  nature  no  longer  knows  who 
and  what  God  seeks  to  be  to  him.  Still  these  latter  gifts 
have  not  been  withdrawn  entirely  from  man.''  Reason  and 
judgment  and  will,  however  corrupt,  yet,  in  so  far  as  they 
belong  to  m:i  I's  nature,  have  not  been  wholly  lost.  The  fact 
that  men  are  found  either  wholly  or  in  part  deprived  of 
reason,  proves  that  the  title  to  these  gifts  is  not  self-evident 
and  that  they  are  not  distributed  to  men  on  the  basis  of 
merit.  None  the  less,  the  grace  of  God  imparts  them  to  us.'* 
The  reason  whereby  man  distinguishes  between  truth  and 
error,  good  and  evil,  and  forms  conceptions  and  judgments, 
and  also  the  will  which  is  inseparable  from  human  nature  as 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


119 


the  faculty  whereby  man  strives  after  what  he  deems  good 
for  himself, — these  raise  him  above  the  animals.  Conse- 
quently it  is  contrary  to  Scripture  as  well  as  to  experience 
to  attribute  to  man  such  a  perpetual  blindness  as  would 
render  him  unable  to  form  any  true  conception.^'  On  the 
contrarj'.  there  is  light  still  shining  in  the  darkness,  men  still 
retain  a  degree  of  love  for  the  truth,  some  sparks  of  the 
truth  have  still  been  preserved.'*  Men  carry  in  themselves 
the  principles  of  the  laws  which  are  to  govern  them  individ- 
ually and  in  their  association  with  one  another.  They  agree 
in  regard  to  the  fundamentals  of  justice  and  equity,  and 
everywhere  exhibit  an  aptness  and  liking  for  social  order.'** 
Sometimes  a  remarkable  sagacity  is  given  to  men  whereby 
they  are  not  only  able  to  learn  certain  things,  but  also  to 
make  important  inventions  and  discoveries,  and  to  put  these 
to  practical  use  in  life."  Owing  to  all  this,  not  only  is 
an  orderly  civil  society  made  possible  among  men.  but  arts 
and  sciences  develop,  which  are  not  to  be  despised.  For 
these  should  be  considered  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is 
true  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  spirit  of  sanctification  dwells  in 
believers  only,  but  as  a  spirit  of  life,  of  wisdom  and  of 
power  He  works  also  in  those  who  do  not  believe.  No 
Christian,  therefore,  should  despise  these  gifts;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  should  honor  art  and  science,  music  and  philosophy 
and  various  other  products  of  the  human  mind  as  praestant- 
issima  Spiritus  dona,  and  make  the  most  of  them  for  his  own 
persona?  use.'*  Accordingly,  in  the  moral  sphere  also  dis- 
tinctions are  to  be  recognized  between  some  men  and  others. 
While  all  are  corrupt,  not  all  are  fallen  to  an  equal  depth :" 
there  are  sins  of  ignorance  and  sins  of  malice."  There  is 
a  difference  between  Camillus  and  Catiline.  F,v  i  to  sinful 
man  sometimes  speciosae  dotes  and  speciales  Dei  gratiae  are 
granted.    In  common  parlance  it  is  even  permissible  to  say 


1  1 


120 


HERMAN    DAVINCK 


that  one  man  lias  lieen  lx»rn  bene,  another  pravac  naturae}^ 
Nay,  every  man  has  to  acknowledge  in  the  talents  entrusted 
to  him  a  specialis  or  peculiaris  Dei  gratia.*"  In  the  diversity 
of  all  these  gifts  we  see  the  remnants  of  the  divine  image 
whereby  man  is  distinguished  from  all  other  creatures." 

In  \itw  of  all  these  utterances,  which  it  would  be  easy  to 
increase  and  enforce  from  the  other  works  of  Calvin,  it  is 
grossly  unjust  to  cliarge  the  Reformer  with  narrow-minded- 
ness and  intolerance.  It  is,  of  course,  a  dififerent  question 
whether  Calvin  himself  possessed  talent  and  aptness  for  all 
tlicse  arts  and  sciences  to  which  lie  accords  praise.  But 
even  if  this  be  not  so,  even  if  he  did  not  possess  the  love 
for  music  and  singing  which  distinguished  Luther,  this  is 
not  to  his  discredit,  for  not  only  has  every  genius  its  limita- 
tions, but  the  Reformers  were  and  had  to  be  by  vocation  men 
of  faith,  and  for  having  excelled  in  this  they  deserve  our 
veneration  and  praise,  no  less  than  the  men  of  art  and 
science.  Calvin  affirms,  it  is  true,  that  the  virtues  of  the 
natural  man.  however  noble,  do  not  suffice  for  justifica- 
tion at  the  judgment-bar  of  God,«  but  this  is  due  to  his 
profound  conviction  of  the  majesty  and  spiritual  character 
of  the  moral  law.  Aside  from  this,  he  is  more  generous  in 
his  recognition  of  what  is  true  and  good,  wherever  it  be 
found,  than  any  other  Reformer.  He  surveys  the  entire 
earth  and  finds  everywhere  the  evidence  of  the  divine  good- 
ness, wisdom  and  power.  Calvin's  theological  standpoint 
does  not  render  him  narrow  in  his  sympathies,  but  rather 
gives  to  his  mind  the  stamp  of  catholicity. 

This  appears  with  equal  clearness  from  the  calling  which 
he  assigns  to  the  Christian.  In  regard  to  this  also  Calvin 
takes  his  point  of  departure  in  the  will  of  God.  To  the 
Romanist  view  he  brings  in  principle  the  same  objection  that 
bears  against  the  pagan  conception:    the  doctrine  of  the 


CALVIN   AND   COMMON   GRACE 


121 


meritonousness  of  good  works  is  a  delusion:  the  monastic 
vows  are  an  infringement  of  Christian  liberty ;  the  i)erfection 
striven  after  by  this  method  is  an  arbitrary  ideal,  set  up  by 
man  himself.     Romanism  and  paganism  both  minimize  the 
corruption  of  human  nature,  and  in  the  matter  of  good 
works  start  from  the  free  will  of  man.    In  contradistinction 
to  this  Calvin  proceeds  on  the  principle:  nostri  non  sumus. 
Da  suwus.    The  Christian's  life  ought  to  be  one  continual  | 
sacrifice,  a  perfect  consecration  to  God,  a  service  of  God's 
name,  obedience  to  His  law.  a  pursuit  of  His  glory."    This  '• 
undivided  consecration  to  God  assumes  on  earth  largely  the 
character  of  self-denial  and  cross-bearing.   Paganism  knows 
nothing  of  this ;  it  merely  prescribes  certain  moral  maxims 
and  strives  to  bring  man's  life  into  subjection  to  his  reason 
or  will,  or  to  nature. -"^     But  the  Christian  subjects  also  his 
intellect  and  his  will  and  all  his  powers  to  the  law  of  God. 
He  does  not  resign  himself  to  the  inevitable,  but  commits 
himself  to  the  heavenly  Father,  who  is  not  like  unto  a 
philosopher  preaching  virtue,  but  is  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ." 

The  result  is  that  for  Calvin  the  passive  virtues  of  sub- 
mission, humility,  patience,  self-denial,  cross-bearing  stand 
in  the  foreground.  Like  St.  Augustine,  Calvin  is  mortally 
afraid  of  pride,  whereby  man  exalts  himself  above  God." 
His  strong  insistence  upon  the  inability  of  man  and  the 
bondage  of  the  will  is  not  for  the  purpose  of  plunging  man 
into  despair,  but  in  order  to  raise  him  from  his  lethargy 
and  to  awaken  in  him  the  longing  for  what  he  lacks,  to 
make  him  renounce  all  self-glorying  and  self-reliance  and 
put  all  his  confidence  in  God  alone.'*^  Calvin  strips  man  of 
everything  in  order  to  restore  unto  him  all  things  in  God." 
Quanta  magis  in  tc  infirmus  es,  tanto  magis  te  suscipit 
Domimis;  nostra  humilitas  ejus  altitudo.*^    Humilitas  thus 


ill 


Ml. 


IJ2 


HERMAN    BAVINCK 


becomes  the  first  virtue;  it  jjrows  on  the  root  of  election;'" 
we  are  continually  taught  it  by  ChkI  in  all  the  adversity  and 
onicifixion  of  the  present  life;""  it  places  us  for  the  first 
time  in  the  i)roper  relation  towards  God  and  our  fellow- 
man,'-  For  it  reconciles  us  to  the  fact  that  this  life  is  for 
us  a  land  of  ])ilijrimay:e,  full  of  jwrils  and  afflictions,  and 
teaches  us  to  surrender  ourselves  in  rdi  things  to  the  will  of 
('$(h\  :  DoDiimis  ita  voluit,  ergo  ejus  volnntatcm  scquatnur.'^' 
It  likewise  teaches  us  to  love  our  neighbor,  to  value  the  gifts 
l)estowed  upon  him  and  to  employ  our  own  gifts  for  his 
l)enefit.'* 

Still,  it  would  1k>  a  mistake  to  iniagine  that  according  to 
Calvin  the  Christian  life  is  confined  to  the  practice  of  the 
passive  virtues.  It  is  true,  he  often  speaks  of  despising  the 
present  and  contemplating  the  future  life.*'  But  on  con- 
sidering the  times  in  which  Calvin  lived,  the  persecution  \ 
and  oppression  co  which  the  Reformation  was  exposed  in 
well-nigh  e^er)-  country,  the  Ixirlily  and  mental  suffering  the 
Refonner  himself  had  to  endure, — on  considering  all  this  we 
cannot  wonder  that  he  exliorts  the  faithful  before  all  things 
to  the  exercise  of  humility  and  submission,  to  patience  and  I 
oliedience,  to self-i!enial  and  cross-beat ing.  This  has  a'w-." | 
been  so  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  may  be  traced  back  to 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  the  Apostles.  It  does  not  speak 
favorably  for  the  depth  and  intensity  of  our  spiritual  life,  if 
we  are  inclinerl  to  find  fault  with  Calvin,  the  other  Re- 
formers, and  the  martyrs  of  the  Church  for  this  alleged 
one-sidedness  of  their  faith.  It  rather  should  excite  our 
admiration  that,  in  the  midst  of  such  circumstances,  they 
so  largely  kept  still  an  eye  open  for  the  positive  vocation  of 
the  Christian.  With  Calvin  at  least  the  reverse  side  to  the 
attitude  thus  criticized  is  not  wanting.     Nor  does  it  appear 


CALVIN    AND   COMMON   GRACE 


123 


merely  after  an  incidental  fashion,  by  wny  of  appendix  to 
his  ethics:  it  is  the  outcome  of  his  own  most  individual 
principle;  its  root  apain  lies  in  his  conception  of  the  will/ 
of  G(k1.  • 

As  is  universally  acknowledjjed.  we  ojKe._tQ  Luther  the 
restoration  of  man's  natural  calling  to  a  place  of  honor. 
Calvi:i.  however,  carried  this  principle  enunciated  by  his 
predecessors  to  its  furthermost  consequences  He  viewed 
the  whole  of  life  from  the  standpoint  of  the  will  of  God  and 
placed  it  in  all  its  extent  under  the  discipline  of  the  divine 
law?  It  was  tTie  common  conviction  of  the  Reformers  that 
Christian  perfection  must  be  realized  not  above  and  outside 
of,  but  within  the  sphere  of  the  calling  assigned  us  by  God 
here  on  earth.  Perfection  consists  neither  in  compliance 
with  arbitrary  human  or  ecclesiastical  commandments,  nor 
in  the  performance  of  all  sorts  of  extraordinary  activities. 
It  consists  in  the  faithful  discharge  of  those  ordinary  daily 
duties  which  have  been  laid  by  God  upon  every  man  in  the 
conduct  of  life.  But  much  more  strongly  than  Luther, 
Calvin  emphasizes  the  idea  that  life  itself  in  its  whole  length 
and  breadth  and  depth  must  be  a  service  of  God.  Life  ac- 
quires for  him  a  religious  character,  is  subsumed  under  and 
becomes  a  part  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Or.  ?.-  Calvin  him- 
self repeatedly  fomiulates  it:  Christian  life  is  always  and 
everywhere  a  life  in  the  presence  of  God,  a  walking  before 
His  face, — coram  ipso  ambulare,  ac  si  essemus  sub  ejus 
oculis?^ 

When,  therefore,  Calvin  speaks  of  despising  the  present 
life,  he  means  by  this  something  far  different  from  what 
was  meant  by  mediaeval  ethics.  He  does  not  mean  that  life 
ought  to  be  fled  from,  suppressed,  or  mutilated,  but  wishes 
to  convey  the  idea  that  the  Christian  should  not  give  his 
heart  to  this  vain,  transitory  life,  but  should  possess  every- 


i\ 


I -'4 


HEI^M.W    BAVI.NXK 


thiiiy  as  not  ])osscssing  it.  and  put  his  confidence  in  God 
alone."  But  life  in  itself  is  a  bcncdktio  Dei  and  comprises 
nirmy  divnw  bcncficia.  It  is  for  believers  a  means  to  prepare 
tlieni  for  the  heavenly  salvation.'*  It  should  be  hated  only 
i]iiiilciiits  nos  fycccato  tcncat  obnoxios,  and  tliis  hatred  should 
never  relate  to  life  as  such.-"'"  On  the  contrary,  this  life  and 
the  vocation  in  it  given  us  by  God  are  a  part  which  we  have 
no  right  to  abandon,  but  which  without  murmuring  and 
inii)atience\ve  must  faithfully  guard,  so  long  as  God  Himself 
does  not  relieve  us.'"'  So  to  view  life,  as  a  vocatio  Dei,— ihx?, 
is  tlie  first  principle,  the  foundation  of  all  moral  action ;  this 
im])arts  unity  to  our  life  and  symmetry  to  all  its  parts;  this 
assigns  to  each  one  his  individual  place  and  task,  and  pro- 
vides the  precious  comfort  quod  mdhim  crit  tarn  sordidum 
tic  fde  opus,  quod  uon  coram  Deo  rcsplctideat  ct  pretiosissi- 
iiiuiii  liabeatur.'^^ 

Thus  Calvin  sees  the  whole  of  life  steeped  in  the  light  of 
the  divine  glory.  As  in  all  nature  there  is  no  creature  which 
does  not  reflect  the  divine  perfection,  so  in  the  rich  world 
of  men  there  is  no  vocation  so  simple,  no  labor  so  mean,  as 
not  to  be  suffused  with  the  divine  splendor  and  subservient 
to  the  glory  of  God's  name.  And  Calvin  applies  this  point 
of  view  to  a  still  wider  range.  All  the  possessions  of  life 
are  after  the  same  manner  rescued  from  the  dishonor  to 
which  ascetic  moralism  had  abandoned  them.  To  be  sure, 
he  pnjtests  against  defiling  the  conscience  in  the  use  of  these 
possessions  and  insists  upon  it  that  the  Christian  shall  be 
actuated  by  pracsentis  vitae  contcinptu  et  immortalitatis 
meditationc.  But  he  maintains  with  equal  emphasis  that  all 
these  possessions  are  gifts  of  God,  designed  not  merely  to 
provide  for  our  necessities,  but  also  bestowed  for  our  enjoy- 
ment and  delight.  When  God  adorns  the  earth  with  trees 
and  plants  and  flowers,  when  He  causes  the  vine  to  grow 


CAI.VIN    AND    COMMON    GRACE 


12  = 


which  makes  glad  the  heart  of  man.  when  He  permits  man 
to  dig  from  out  tiie  earth  the  precious  metals  and  stones 
which  shine  in  the  light  of  the  sun,— all  this  proves  that 
God  does  not  mean  to  restrict  the  use  of  earthly  possessions 
to  the  relief  of  our  nhrx^iute  necessities,  but  has  given  them 
to  man  also  for  enjc  ment  of  Iife.'=-  Prosperity,  abundance 
and  luxury  also  are  ifts  of  God.  ij  be  enjoyed  with  grati- 
tude and  moderation  And  Calvin  does  not  want  to  bind 
the  conscience  with  regard  to  this  to  rigid  rules,  but  expects 
it  freely  to  regulate  itself  by  the  general  principles  laid  down 
in  Scripture  for  this  purpose.®* 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  Reformer  of  Geneva  did  not 
always  adhere  in  practice  consistently  to  this  golden  nile. 
Instead  of  leaving  room  for  individual  liberty  he  endeavoretH 
to  bring  the  entire  compasr  of  life  under  definite  rules.  The 
Q<5n5istaw-4«Hl-  for  its  task  invigilare  grcgi  Domini  ut  Dens 
pure  colahir  and  had  to  exercise  censorship  over  every  im- 
proper word  and  every  wrong  act:  it  had  to  watch  over 
orthodoxy  and  church-attendance,  to  be  on  the  lookout  for 
Romish  customs  and  worldly  amusements,  to  oversee  do- 
mestic life  and  the  education  of  children;  it  had  to  keep  its 
e}es  on  the  tradesman  in  his  store,  on  the  craftsman  in  his 
workshop,  on  the  merchant  in  the  market-place,  and  to 
subject  the  entire  range  of  life  to  the  strictest  discipline. 
Even  regulations  for  fire-departments  and  night-watches, 
for  market-facilities  and  street-cleaning,  for  trade  and  in- 
dustry, for  the  prosecution  of  law-suits  and  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  are  to  be  found  among  Calvin's  writings.  It 
is  possible  to  justify  all  these  measures  in  view  of  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  they  were  introduced  in  Geneva. 
But  nobody  can  deny  that  Calvin  went  too  far  in  the  creation 
of  a  moral  police  of  this  kind,  that  he  introduced  a  regime 
which,  while  perhaps  necessary  and  productive  of  excellent 


120 


HERMAN    CAVINCK 


results  for  tliat  age,  is  yet  unsuited  to  other  times  and  to 
different  conditions. 

But  this  criticism  of  Calvin's  practice  by  no  means  de- 
tracts from  the  glory  of  the  principle  proclaimed  by  him. 
What  he  advocates  in  imitation  of  Zwingli  was  not  a  mere 
religious  and  ecclesiastical  reform,  but  a  moral  reformation 
embracing  the  whole  of  life.  Both  Zwingii  and  Calvin 
waged  war  not  merely  against  the  Judaistic  self-righteous- 
ness of  the  Roman  Church,  but  assailed  with  equal  vigor 
all  pagan  license.  Both  desired  a  national  life  in  all  its 
parts  inspired  and  directed  by  the  principles  of  the  divine 
Word.  And  both  were  led  to  this  view  by  their  theological 
principle;  they  took  their  point  of  departure  in  all  their 
thought  and  activity  in  God,  walked  with  Him  through 
all  of  life  and  brought  back  to  God  as  an  offering  all  they 
were  and  had.  Behind  everything  the  sovereign  will  of  I 
God  lies  hidden  and  works.  The  content,  the  kernel  of 
this  will  is  made  known  to  us  in  the  Gospel;  from  it  we 
know  that  God  is  a  merciful  and  gracious  Father,  who  in 
spite  of  all  opposition  proposes  to  Himself  the  salvation  of 
the  Church,  the  redemption  of  the  w  rid,  the  glorification  of 
His  jierfections.  But  this  will  of  God  is  not  an  impotent 
desire,  it  is  omnipotent  energy.  It  realizes  itself  in  the  faith 
of  the  elect ;  true  faith  is  an  experience  of  the  work  of  God 
in  oi^.e's  soul,  and  for  this  reason  affords  unshakable  assur- 
ance, immovable  confidence,  the  power  to  surmount  all  pain  I 
and  peril  through  communion  with  God.  Though  this 
gracious  and  omnipotent  will  of  God  is  made  known  in  the 
Gospel  alone  and  experienced  in  faith  only,  nevertlieless  it 
does  not  stand  isolated,  but  is  encompassed,  supported  and 
reinforced  by  the  operation  of  the  same  will  in  the  world  at 
large.  Special  grace  is  encircled  by  common  grace;  the! 
vocation  which  comes  to  us  in  faith  is  connected  and  con- 


CALVIN    AND    COMMON    GRACE 


127 


nects  us  with  the  vocation  presented  to  us  in  our  earthly 
calHng;  the  c!  ction  revealed  to  us  in  faith  through  this 
faith  communicates  its  power  to  our  entire  life ;  the  God  of 
creation  and  of  regeneration  is  oiie^'^  Hence  the  believer  can- 
not rest  contented  in  his  faith,  but  must  make  it  the  point 
of  vantage  from  which  he  mounts  up  to  the  source  of  elec- 
tion and  presses  forward  to  the  conquest  of  the  entire  world. 
History  has  demonstrated  that  the  belief  in  election,  pro- 
vided it  be  genuine,  that  is,  a  heartfelt  conviction  of  faith, 
does  not  produce  careless  or  Godless  men.  Especially  as 
developed  and  professed  by  Calvin,  it  is  a  principle  which 
cuts  off  all  Romish  error  at  the  root.  Whereas  with  Tome 
special  revelation  consists  primarily  in  the  disclosure  of 
certain  mysteries,  with  Calvin  it  receives  for  its  content  the 
gracious  fatherly  will  of  God  realizing  itself  through  the 
\\  ord  of  revelation.  With  Rome  faith  is  nothing  more  than 
an  intellecturl  assent,  preparing  man  for  grace  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  meritum  congnii;  with  Calvin  faith  is  the  reception 
of  grace  itself,  experience  of  the  power  of  God,  undoubting 
assurance  of  God,  through  and  through  religious  in  its 
nature.  [With  Rome  grace  chiefly  serves  the  purpose  of 
strei.gthening  the  will  of  man  and  qualifying  him  for  the 
performance  of  various  meritorious  good  works  prescribed 
by  the  Church ;  with  Calvin  the  grace  received  through  faith 
raises  man  to  the  rank  of  an  organ  of  the  divine  will  and 
causes  him  to  walk  in  accordance  with  this  will  before  the 
presence  of  God  and  for  the  divine  glory?]  The  Reforma- 
tion as  begun  by  Luther  and  Zwing.i,  and  reinforced  and 
carried  through  by  Calvin,  put  an  end  to  the  Romish  super- 
naturalism  and  dualism  and  asceticism.  The  divine  will 
which  created  the  world,  which  in  the  state  of  sin  preserves 
it  through  common  grace  and  makes  itself  known  through 
special  grace  as  the  will  of  a  merciful  and  gracious  Father, 


128 


nr.KMAN    BAVINCK 


aims  ;it  tlie  salvation  of  the  world,  and  itself  through  its 
oniniixitcnt  cncrg>-  brings  about  tliis  salvation.  Because  it 
thus  placed  the  whole  of  life  under  the  control  of  the  divine 
will,  it  was  possible  for  Calvin's  ethics  to  fall  into  too  precise 
regulations,  into  rigorism  and  puritanism ;  but  in  principle 
his  ethics  is  diametrically  opposed  to  all  ascetism.  it  is  cath- 
olic and  universal  in  its  scope. 

In  order  to  prove  this  by  one  striking  example  attention 
may  be  called  to  the  fact  that  mediaeval  ethics  consistently 
disapproved  the  principle  of  usury"*  on  the  groimd  of  its 
being  forbiddeil  by  Scripture  and  contrary  to  the  unpro- 
ductive nature  of  money.     Accordingly  it  looked  with  con- 
tempt  upon   trade  and  commerce.      Luther,    Melanchthon, 
Zwingli   and   Erasmus  adhered  to  this   view,   but  .Halviu, 
when  this  imi)ortant  problem  had  been  submitted  to  him, 
formulated  in  a  classic  document  the  grounds  on  which  it 
couUl  be  affirmed  that  a  reasonable  interest  is  neither  in  con- 
flict with   Scripture  nor  with  the  nature  of  money.      HeJ 
took  into  account  the  !a\v  of  life  under  which  commerce 
o])eratcs  and  declared  that  only  the  sins  of  commerce  are  to 
be  frowned  upon,  whereas  cominerce  itself  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  calling  well-pleasing  to  God  and  profitable  to  society/^ 
^     And  this  merely  illustrates  the  point  of  view  from  which 
Calvin   haliitually   approached   the   problems   of   life.      He 
found  the  will  of  God  revealed  not  merely  in   Scripture, 
but  also  in  the  world,  and  he  traced  the  connection  and 
sought  to  restore  the  harmony  between  them.     Under  the 
guidance  of  the  divine  Word  he  distinguished  everywhere 
between  the  institution  of  God  and  human  corruption,  and 
then  sought  to  establish  and  restore  everything  in  harmony 
with   the  divine  nature  and  law-.      Nothing  is  unclean   in 
itself;  everv-  part  of  the  world  and  every  calling  in  life 
is  a  revelation  of  the  divine  perfections,  so  that  even  the 


CALVIN  AND  COMMON  GRACE 


129 


huinblcst  (lay  laborer  fulfills  a  divine  calling.     This  is  the 
democratic  element  in  the  doctrine  of  Calvin:  there  is  with 
God  no  acceptance  of  persons;    all  men  are  equal  before 
linn;  even  the  humblest  and  meanest  workman,  if  he  be  a 
iK-liever,  fills  a  i)lace  in  tiie  Kingdom  of  God  and  stands  as  a 
colaborer  with  God  in  His  presence.     But— and  this  is  the 
aristocratic,   reverse   side  to  the  democratic   view—  .very 
creature  and  every  calling  has  its  own  peculiar  nature: 
Church  and  state,  the  family  and  society,  agriculture  and 
commerce,  art  and  science  are  all  institutions  and  gifts  of 
God,  but  each  in  itself  is  a  special  revelation  of  the  divine 
will  and  therefore  possesses  its  own  nature.     The  unit/  and 
the  diversity  in  the  whole  world  alike  point  back  to  the  one 
sovereign,  omnipotent,  gracious  and  merciful  will  of  God. 
In  this  spirit  Calvin  labored  in  Geneva.     But  his  activity 
vyas  not  confined  to  the  territory  of  one  city.     Geneva  was  to 
Calvin  merely  the  center,  from  which  he  surveyed  the  entire 
field  of  the  Kefoniiation  in  all  lands.     When  his  onlv  child 
was  taken  away  from  him  by  death,  he  consoled  himself 
with  the  thought  that  God  had  given  him  numerous  children 
after  the  Spirit.     And  so  it  was  indeed.     Through  an  exten- 
sive correspondence  he  kept  in  touch  with  his  fellow-laborers 
in  the  work  of  the  Reformation;  all  questions  were  referred 
to  him ;  he  was  the  councillor  of  all  the  leaders  of  the  great 
movement ;  he  taught  hundreds  of  men  and  trained  them  in 
his  spirit.     From  all  quarters  refugees  came  to  Geneva,  that 
bulwark  against  Rome,  to  seek  protection  and  support,  and 
afterwards  returned  to  their  own  lands  inspired  with  new 
courage.     Thus  Calvin  created  in  many  lands  a  people  who, 
while  made  up  from  all  classes,  nobles  and  plain  citizens, 
townspeople  and  country-folk,  were  yet  one  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  divine  vocation.     In  this  consciousness  they  took 
up  the  battle  against  tyranny  in  Church  and  state  alike,  and 


10 


I30 


HERMAN  BAVINCK 


in  that  contest  secured  liberties  and  rights  which  are  still 
ours  at  the  present  day.  Calvin  himself  stood  in  the  fore- 
front of  this  battle.  Life  and  doctrine  with  him  were  one. 
He  gave  his  body  a  living,  holy  sacrifice,  well-pleasing  unto 
God  through  Jesus  Christ.  Tliercin  consisted  his  reasonable 
service.     Cor  Deo  mactatum  offcro. 


CALVIN'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE 
OF  GOD. 


By  Benjamin  B.  Warfield. 

The  first  chapters  of  Calvin's  Institutes  are  taken  up  with 
a  comprehensive  exposition  of  the  sources  and  guarantee  of 
the  knowledge  of  God  and  divine  things    (Book  I,  chs. 
i-ix).    A  systematic  treatise  on  the  knowledge  of  God  must 
needs  begin  with  such  an  exposition;  and  we  require  no 
account  of  the  circumstance  that  Calvin's  treatise  begins 
with  it,  beyond  the  systematic  character  of  his  mind  and 
the  clearness  and  comprehensiveness  of  his  view.     This 
exposition  therefore  makes  its  appearance  in  the  earliest 
edition  of  the  Institutes  which  attempted  "to  give  a  sum- 
mary of  reli-ion  in  all  its  parts",  redacted  in  orderly  se- 
quence; that  is  to  say,  which  was  intended  as  a  text-book 
in  theology.     This  was  the  second  edition,  published  in 
1539,  which  was  considered  by  Calvin  to  be  the  first  which 
at  all  corresponded  to  its  title.    In  this  edition  this  exposi- 
sition  already  stands  practically  complete.    Large  insertions 
were  made  into  it  subsequently,  by  which  it  was  greatly 
enriched  as  a  detailed  exposition   and  validation  of  the 
sources  of  our  knowledge  of  God;  but  nc    modifications 
were  made  in  its  fundamental  teaching  by  these  additions, 
and  the  ground  plan  of  the  exposition  as  laid  down  in  1539 
was  retained  unaltered  throughout  the  subsequent  develop- 
ment of  the  treatise. 

We  may  observe  in  the  controversies  in  which  Calvin  had 
been  engaged  between  1536  and  1539  a  certain  preparation 
for  writing  this   comprehensive   and   admirably   balanced 


-lii 


132 


hknjamin  n.  waki-iki.d 


statement,  witli  its  equal  rcinuliation  of  Romish  and  Ana- 
baptist error  and  its  high  note  of  assurance  in  the  face  of 
the  scepticism  of  the  average  man  of  the  world.  We  may 
trace  in  it  the  fruits  of  his  eager  and  exhaustive  studies 
prosecuted  in  the  interval,  as  pastor,  professor  and  Protest- 
ant statesman;  and  especially  of  his  own  ripening  thought 
as  he  worked  more  and  more  into  detail  his  systematic  view 
of  the  body  of  truth.  But  we  can  attribute  to  nothing  but 
his  theological  genius  the  feat  by  which  he  set  a  compressed 
apologetical  treatise  in  the  forefront  of  his  little  book — for 
the  Institutes  were  still  in  15.^9  a  little  book,  although  al- 
readv  expanded  to  more  than  double  the  size  of  their  orig- 
inal fonn  (edition  of  153'')).  Thus  he  not  only  for  the 
first  time  supplied  the  constructive  basis  for  the  Reforma- 
tion movement,  but  even  for  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  Christian  theology  drew  in  outline  the  plan  of  a  complete 
structure  of  Cliristian  Apologetics.  For  this  is  the  signifi- 
cance in  the  history  of  thought  of  Calvin's  exposition  of 
the  sources  and  guarantee  of  the  knowledge  of  God.  which 
forms  the  opening  topic  of  his  Institutes.  "Thus",  says 
Julius  Kcistlin,  after  cursorily  surveying  the  course  of  the 
expositifin,  "there  already  rises  with  him  an  edifice  of 
Christian  Apologetics,  in  its  outlines  complete  (fcrtig). 
With  it.  be  stands,  already  in  1539,  unique  (cincig)  among 
the  Reformers,  and  among  Christian  theologians  in  general 
up  to  bis  day.  Only  as  isolated  building-stones  can  appear  in 
comparison  with  this,  even  what  Melanchthon.  for  example, 
offered  in  the  last  elaboration  of  the  Loci  with  reference  to 
the  proofs  for  the  exi.stence  of  God."'  In  point  of  fact, 
in  Augustine  alone  among  his  predecessors,  do  we  find  any- 
thing like  the  same  grasp  of  the  elements  of  the  problem  as 
Calvin  here  exhibits:  and  nowhere  among  his  predecessors 
do  we  find  these  elements  brought  together  in  a  constructive 


CAl.VIX  S   Doe  TKINE   t)l     THE    KNOWLEDGK   OF   GOD       1 33 

stateiiieiU  of  anything  like  the  completeness  and  systematic 
balance  which  he  gave  to  it. 

At  once  on  its  publico  lion,  however,  Calvin's  apologetical 
construction  became  the  property  of  universal  Christian 
thought,  anrl  it  has  entered  so  vitally  into  Protestant,  and 
especially  Reformed,  tiiinking  as  to  appear  now-a-days  very 
much  a  matter  of  course.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  appreciate 
its  novelty  in  him  or  to  realize  that  it  is  not  as  native  to 
every  Christian  mind  as  it  now  seems  to  us  the  inevitable 
adjustment  of  the  elements  of  the  problems  raised  by  the 
Christian  revelation.  Familiar  as  it  seems,  therefore,  it  is 
important  that  we  should  apprehend  it,  at  least  in  its  out- 
lines, as  it  lies  in  its  ])rimary  statement  in  Calvin's  pages. 
So  only  can  we  apjireciate  Calvin's  genius  or  estimate 
what  we  owe  to  him.  A  very  brief  abstract  will  probably 
suffice,  however,  to  bring  before  us  in  thg,  first  instance 
the  elements  of  Calvin's  thought.  These  include  the  postu- 
lation  of  an  mnate  knowledge  of  God  in  man,  quickened 
and  developed  by  a  very  rich  manifestation  of  God  in  nature 
and  providence,  which,  however,  fails  of  its  proper  effect 
because  of  man's  corruption  in  sin;  so  that  an  objective 
revelation  of  God,  embodied  in  the  Scrii)tures,  was  rendered 
necessary,  and,  as  well,  a  subjective  operation  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  on  the  heart  enabling  sinful  man  to  receive  this 
revelation, — by  which  conjoint  divine  action,  objective  and 
subjective,  a  true  kii  vledge  of  God  is  communicated  to 
the  human  soul. 

Drawn  out  a  little  more  into  detail,  this  teaching  is  as 
follows.  The  knowledge  of  God  is  given  ip  the  very  same 
act  by  which  we  know  self.  For  when  we  know  self,  we 
must  know  it  as  it  is :  and  that  means  we  must  know  it  as 
dependent,  derived,  imperfect  and  responsible  being.  To 
know  self  implies,  therefore,  the  co-knowledge  with  self  oF 


M 


J  34 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


that  on  vvliich  it  is  dependent,  from  which  it  derives,  by  the 
standard  of  which  its  imperfection  is  revealed,  to  which  it 
is  responsible.  Of  c'oiirse,  such  a  knowledge  of  self  postu- 
lates a  knowledge  of  God,  in  contrast  with  whom  alone  do 
we  ever  truly  know  self :  but  this  only  the  more  emphasises 
the  fact  that  we  know  God  in  knowing  self,  and  the  relative 
priorty  of  our  knowledge  of  two  objects  of  knowledge 
which  we  are  conscious  only  of  knowing  toge.her  may  for 
the  moment  be  left  undetermined.  Meanwhile,  it  is  clear 
that  man  has  an  instinctive  and  ineradicable  knowledge  of 
God.  which,  moreover,  must  produce  appropriate  reactions 
in  his  thought,  feeling  and  will,  whence  arises  what  we 
call  religion.  But  these  reactions  are  conditioned  by  the 
state  of  tlie  soul  which  reacts.  Although,  then,  man  cannot 
avoid  possessing  a  knowledge  of  God.  and  this  innate 
knowledge  of  God  is  quickened  and  developed  by  the  richest 
manifestations  of  God  in  nature  and  providence,  which  no 
man  can  escape  cither  perceiving  or  so  far  apprehending, 
yet  the  actual  knowledge  of  God  which  is  framed  in  the 
human  soul  is  affected  by  the  subjective  condition  of  the 
soul.  The  soul,  being  corrupted  by  «iin.  \<^  flnlla/l  in  its  in- 
stinctive apprehension  of  God;  and  God's  manifestation  in 
nature  and  history  is  deflected  in  it.  Accordingly  the  testi- 
mony of  nature  to  God  is  insufficient  that  sinful  man  should 
know  Him  aright,  and  God  has  therefore  supernaturally 
revealed  Himself  to  His  people  and  deposited  this  revela- 
tion of  Himself  in  written  Scriptures.  In  these  Scriptures 
alone,  therefore,  do  we  possess  an  adequate  revelation  of 
God;  and  this  revelation  is  attested  as  such  by  irresistible 
external  evidence  and  attests  itself  as  such  by  such  marks 
of  inherent  divinity  that  no  normal  mind  can  resist  them. 
But  the  sin-darkened  minfls  to  whicli  it  appeals  are  not 
normal  minds,  but  disordered  witli  the  awful  disease  of  sin. 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD       I3S 


W'lat  is  to  (j;ive  suhjective  efTcct  in  a  sin-blinded  mind  to 
even  a  direct  revelation  from  God?  The  revelation  of  God 
is  its  own  credential.  It  needs  no  other  lifjl.t  to  be  thrown 
npon  it  Init  tiiat  which  emanates  from  itself:  and  no  other 
light  can  produce  the  effect  which  its  own  splendor  as  a  reve- 
lation of  God  should  efTect.  Rut  all  fails  when  the  receptiv- 
ity is  destroyed  by  sin.  For  sinners,  therefore,  there  is  requi- 
site a  rcpairinjj^  operation  upon  their  souls  before  the  light 
of  the  Word  itself  can  accredit  itself  to  them  as  light.  This 
repairing  operation  on  the  souls  of  sinful  men  by  which 
they  are  enabled  to  perceive  light  is  called  the  testimony  of 
the  Holy  Ghost :  which  is  therefore  just  the  subjective 
action  of  the  Spirit  of  God  on  the  heart,  by  virtue  of  which 
it  is  opened  for  the  perception  and  reception  of  the  objec- 
tive revelation  of  God.  The  testimony  of  the  Spirit  cannot, 
then,  take  the  place  of  the  objective  revelation  of  the  Word : 
it  is  no  revelation  in  this  strict  sense.  It  presupposes  the 
objective  revelation  and  only  prepares  the  heart  to  respond 
to  and  embrace  it.  But  the  objective  revelation  can  take  no 
effect  on  the  unprepared  heart.  Wlip.t  the  operation  of  the 
Spirit  on  the  heart  does,  then,  is  to  implant,  or  rather  to 
restore,  a  spiritual  sense  in  the  soul  by  wliich  God  is  recog- 
nized in  His  Word.  When  this  spiritual  sense  has  been 
produced  the  necessity  of  external  proofs  tliat  the  Scriptures 
are  tlie  Word  of  God  is  superseded:  the  Word  of  God  is 
as  immediately  i^erceived  as  such  as  lii;h^  is  perceived  as 
liiiht.  sweetness  as  sweetness, — as  immediately  and  as  ina- 
niissibly.  The  Christian's  knowledge  of  God,  therefore, 
rests  no  doubt  on  an  instinctive  perception  of  God  native 
to  man  as  man.  developed  in  the  Ifght  of  a  patefaction  of 
God  which  pervades  all  nature  and  history ;  but  particularly 
on  an  nl)icctivt  revelation  of  God  deposited  in  Scriptures 
whicii  hear  in  tliemselves  their  own  evidence  of  their  divine 


•36 


BENJAMIN   D.    WARFtELD 


origin,  to  which  every  spiritual  tnan  responds  with  the  same 
strcii};th  of  coiivii-tion  witli  which  !ic  iccoj,Miizcs  lij,'ht  as 
lik'lit.  This  is  the  hasis  whicli  Calvin  in  his  Fustitulis  i)laces 
Jx'iicath  his  systematic  expisition  of  the  knowledj^e  of  God. 
The  elements  of  Calvin's  thonj,dit  here,  it  will  readily  \k 
seen,  rednce  themselves  to  a  few  j^rcat  fmiflamental  princi- 
ples. These  embrace  i)articnlarly  the  followinj;  doctrines :  .^^ 
the  doctrine  of  the  innate  knowledj^e  of  God;  the  doctrine 
of  the  pfeneral  revelation  of  God  in  nature  and  history;  the  > 
doctrine  of  the  special  revelation  of  God  and  its  embodiment 
in  Scriptures:  the  doctrine  of  the  noetic  eflfects  of  sin;  the 
doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  That  we  may 
/  do  justice  to  his  thought  we  must  look  in  some  detail  at 
'  his  treatment  of  each  of  these  doctrines  and  of  the  subordi- 
nate topics  which  are  necessarily  connected  with  them. 


I.       N.\TURAL  REVELATION. 

That  the  knowlcdtre  of  God  is  innate  (I.  iii.  3).  naturally 
encrraved  on  the  hearts  of  men  (J.  v.  4).  and  so  a  part  of 
their  very  constitution  as  men  (I.  iii.  1)  that  it  is  a  matter 
of  instinct  (I-  iii.  i,  I.  iv.  2)  and  every  man  is  self-tauijht 
it  from  his  birth  (I.  iii.  ,^).  Calvin  is  thoroutjhly  assured. 
He  lays  it  down  as  incontrovertible  fact  that  "the  human 
mind,  by  natural  instinct  itself,  possesses  some  sense  of  a 
deity"  (I.  iii.  i,  ad  iitit.  ct  ad  fin.:  .^,—  scnsus  dh-hdtaiis  or 
dcitatis).-  and  defends  the  corollaries  which  flow  from  tliis 
fact,  that  the  knowledi^^e  of  God  is  universal  and  indelible. 
All  men  know  there  is  a  God,  who  has  made  tliem.  and  to 
whom  they  are  responsible.  No  savaf::;e  is  sunk  so  low  as  to 
have  lost  this  sen.se  of  deity,  which  is  wroutjbt  into  lu's  very 
constitution :  and  tiie  degradation  of  men's  worship  is  a 
proof  of  its  ineradicablencss — since  even  sucli  dcbumaniza- 
tion  as  this  worship  mam'fests  has  not  obliterated  it  (I.  iii. 


CALVTN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      1 37 


1).  Tt  is  the  precondition  of  all  religion,  witlioi.!  which  no 
relijjion  would  t-vcr  have  arisen;  and  it  forms  the  silent 
assumption  of  all  attempts  to  expound  the  origin  of  religion 
in  fraud  or  iv>litical  artifice,  as  it  does  also  of  all  corruptions 
f>f  religion,  which  find  their  nerve  in  men's  incurable  relitj- 
ious  propensities  fl.  iii.  i).  The  very  atheists  testify  to  its 
jK^rsistence  in  their  ill-concealed  dread  of  the  deity  they 
profess  to  despise  (I.  iv.  2);  and  the  wicked,  strive  they 
never  so  hard  to  banish  from  their  consciousness  the  sense 
of  an  accusinjj  deity,  are  not  permittcrl  by  nature  to  forget  it 
(I.  iii.  3).  Thus  the  cases  alike  of  the  savatjes.  the  atheists 
and  the  wicked  are  made  contributory  to  the  cstablisiinient 
of  tiie  fact,  and  the  discussion  concludes  with  the  declara- 
tion that  it  is  by  this  innate  knowlcdjjfe  of  God  that  men  arc 
discriiTiinated  from  the  brutes,  so  that  for  men  to  lose  it 
would  be  to  fall  away  from  the  very  law  of  their  creation 
(I.  iii.  3  ad  fin.). ^ 

If  the  knowledge  of  God  enters  thus  into  the  very  idea 
of  humanity  and  constitutes  a  law  of  its  being,  it  follows 
that  it  is  given  in  the  same  act  of  knowledge  by  which  we 
know  ourselves.  This  position  is  developed  at  length  in  the 
opening  chapter.  The  discussion  begins  with  a  remark 
which  reminds  us  of  Augustine's  familiar  contention  that 
the  proper  concern  of  mankind  is  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
the  soul :  to  which  it  is  added  at  once  that  these  two  knowl- 
edges are  so  interrelated  that  it  is  impossible  to  assign  tlic 
priority  to  either.  The  knowledge  of  self  involves  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  also  profits  by  the  knowledge  of 
God :  the  better  we  know  ourselves  the  better  we  shall  know 
God,  but  also,  we  shall  never  know  ourselves  as  we  really 
are  save  in  contrast  with  God.  by  whom  is  supplied  the  onlv 
standard  for  tlic  formation  of  an  accurate  judgment  upon 
ourselves   (I.  i.  2).     In  his  analysis  of  the  mode  of  the 


138 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


implication  of  the  kno\vIc(li::e  of  God  in  the  knowledi^e  of 
self.  Calvin  lays  the  stress  upon  our  nature  as  (lei>en(leiit, 
derived,  imperfect  and  responsihle  heings,  which  if  known  at 
all  must  be  known  as  such,  and  to  be  known  as  such  must 
be  known  as  over  against  that  Being  on  whom  we  are 
dependent,  to  whom  we  owe  our  being,  over  against  whom 
our  imperfection  is  manifest,  and  to  whom  we  are  respon- 
sible (I.  i.  i).  As  we  are  not  self-existent,  wc  must  recog- 
nize ourselves  as  "living  and  moving"  in  Another.  We  rec- 
ognize ourselves  as  products,  and  in  knowing  the  product 
know  the  cause;  thus  our  very  endowments,  seeing  that  thcv 
distil  to  us  by  drops  from  heaven,  form  so  many  streams 
up  which  our  minds  must  needs  travel  to  their  Fountain- 
head.  The  perception  of  our  imperfections  is  at  the  same 
time  the  perception  of  His  perfection ;  so  that  our  very 
poverty  displays  to  us  His  infinite  fulness.  Our  sense 
of  dissatisfaction  with  ourselves  directs  our  eyes  to  Him 
whose  righteous  judgment  we  can  but  anticipate;  and  when 
in  the  presence  of  His  majesty  we  realize  our  meanness  and 
in  the  presence  of  His  righteousness  w'c  realize  our  sin.  our 
perception  of  God  passes  into  con.sternation  as  we  recognize 
in  Him  our  just  Judge. 

The  emphasis  which  Calvin  places  in  tliis  analysis  ujion 
the  sense  of  sin  and  the  part  it  plays  in  our  knowledge 
of  God.  at  once  attracts  attention.  It  is  perhajis  above 
everything  the  "miserable  ruin"  in  which  we  find  our- 
selves, which  C()m]K'Is  us.  according  to  him.  to  raise  our 
Lves  towards  iicavcn.  spurred  on  not  merely  by  a  sense  of 
lack  Init  by  a  sense  of  dread:  it  is  only,  lie  (k-daros.  wlv.ii 
we  liave  begun  to  ]ye  displeased  with  ourselves  lliat  we  ener- 
getically turn  our  thoughts  Godward.  This  is  alreadv  in 
indication  of  the  engrossment  of  C.dvin  in  this  treatise  willi 
practical   rather  than  merely  theoretical  problems.     He  is 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      I39 

less  concerned  to  show  how  man  as  man  attains  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  God,  than  how  man  as  he  actually  exists  upon  the 
earth  attains  to  it.  In  the  very  act  of  declaring  that  this 
knowledge  is  instinctive  and  belongs  to  the  very  constitution 
of  man  as  such,  therefore,  he  so  orders  the  exposition  of  the 
mode  of  its  actual  rise  in  the  mind  as  to  throw  the  emphasis 
on  a  quality  which  does  not  belong  to  man  as  such,  but  only 
to  man  as  actually  existing  in  the  world, — in  that  "miserable 
ruin  into  which  we  have  been  plunged  by  the  defection  of 
the  first  man"  (I.  i.  i ).  Man  as  unfallen,  by  the  very  neces- 
sity of  his  nature  would  have  known  God,  the  sphere  of  his 
being,  the  author  of  his  existence,  the  standard  of  his  excel- 
lences; but  for  man  as  fallen,  Calvin  seems  to  say,  the 
strongest  force  compelling  him  to  look  upwards  to  the  God 
above  him,  streams  from  his  sense  of  sin,  filling  him  with  a 
fearful  looking  forward  to  judgment. 

It  is  quite  obvious  that  such  a  knowledge  of  God  as  Calvin 
here  postulates  as  the  unavoidable  and  ineradicable  posses- 
sion of  man,  is  far  from  a  mere  empty  conviction  that  such 
a  being  as  God  exists.  The  knowledge  of  God  which  is 
given  in  our  knowledge  of  self  is  not  a  bare  perception,  it 
is  a  conception:  it  has  content.  "The  knowledge  of  our- 
selves, therefore,"  says  Calvin  (I.  i.  i  ad  fin.),  "is  not  only 
an  incitement  to  seek  after  God,  but  becomes  a  considerable 
assistance  towards  finding  God."  The  knowledge  of  God 
with  which  we  are  natively  endowed  is  therefore  more  than 
a  bare  conviction  that  God  is:  it  involves,  more  or  less 
explicated,  some  understanding  of  what  God  is.  Such  a 
knowledge  of  God  can  never  be  otiose  and  inert ;  but  must 
produce  an  eflFect  in  human  souls,  in  the  way  of  thinking, 
feeling,  willing.  In  other  words,  our  native  endowment 
is  not  merely  a  senstis  deitatis,  but  also  a  semen  religionis 
(I.  iii.  I,  2 ;  iv.  I,  4;  V.  I ).    For  what  we  call  religion  is  just 


I40 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


the  reaction  of  the  human  soul  to  what  it  perceives  God 
to  be.  Calvin  is,  therefore,  just  as  insistent  that  religion  is 
universal  as  that  the  knowledge  of  God  is  universal.  "The 
seeds  of  religion",  he  insists,  "are  sown  in  every  heart" 
(I.  iv.  1  ;  V.  1  )  :  men  are  jjropense  to  religion  (I.  iii.  2  iiicd.)  ; 
and  always  and  everywhere  frame  to  themselves  a  religion, 
consonant  with  their  conceptions  of  God. 

Calvin's  ideas  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  religion  are  set 
fortii,  if  succinctly,  yet  with  eminent  clearness,  in  his  second 
chapter.  Wherever  any  knowledge  of  God  exists,  he  tells 
us,  there  religion  exists.  He  is  not  speaking  here  of  a  com- 
petent knowledge  of  God  such  as  redeemed  sinners  have  in 
Clirist.  But  nnich  less  is  he  speaking  of  that  mere  notion 
that  there  is  such  a  Being  as  God  which  is  sometimes  called  a 
knowledge  of  God.  It  may  be  possible  to  speculate  on  "the 
essence"  of  God  without  being  moved  by  it.  But  certainly  it 
is  impossible  to  form  any  vital  conception  of  God  without 
some  movement  of  intellect,  feeling  and  will  towards  Him ; 
and  any  real  knowledge  of  God  is  inseparable  from  move- 
ments of  piety  towards  Him.  Piety  means  reverence  and 
love  to  God ;  and  the  knowledge  of  God  tends  therefore  to 
produce  in  us,  first,  sentiments  of  fear  and  reverence;  and, 
secondly,  an  attitude  of  receptivity  and  praise  to  Him  as 
the  fountain  of  all  blessing.  H  man  were  not  a  sinner, 
indeed,  such  would  be  the  result :  men,  knowing  God,  would 
turn  to  Him  in  confidence  and  commit  themselves  without 
reserve  to  His  care, — not  so  much  fearing  His  judgments, 
as  making  them  in  sympathetic  loyalty  their  own  (I.  ii.  2). 
And  herein  we  see  what  pure  and  genuine  religion  is:  "it 
consists  in  faith,  united  with  a  serious  fear  of  God.  com- 
prehending a  voluntary  reverence,  and  producing  legitimate 
worsliip  agreeal)le  to  the  injunctions  of  the  law"  (I.  ii.  2 
ad  fin.).* 


CALVIN  S   DOCTRINE  OF  THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD       I4I 


The  definition  of  religion  to  which  Calvin  thus  attains 
is  exceedingly  interesting,  and  that  not  merely  because  of 
its  vital  relation  to  the  fundamental  thought  of  these  open- 
ing chapters,  but  also  because  of  its  careful  adjustment  to 
the  state  of  the  controversy  in  which  he  was  engaged  as  a 
leader  of  the  Reformation.  In  the  first  of  these  aspects,  as 
we  have  already  pointed  out,  religion  is  with  him  the  vital 
eflFect  of  the  knowledge  of  God  in  the  human  soul ;  so  that 
inevitably  religions  will  differ  as  the  conceptions  of  God 
determining  our  thought  and  feeling  and  directing  our  life 
differ.  In  the  estate  of  purity,  the  knowledge  of  God 
produces  reverence  and  trust:  and  the  religion  of  sinless 
man  will  therefore  "xhibit  no  other  traits  but  trust  and 
love.  In  sinful  man,  the  same  knowledge  of  God  must 
produce,  rather,  a  reaction  of  fear  and  hate — until  the 
grace  of  God  intervenes  with  a  message  of  mercy.  Sin- 
ful man  cannot  be  trusted,  therefore,  to  form  his  own 
religion  for  himself,  but  must  in  all  his  religious  func- 
tioning place  himself  i  .ireservedly  under  the  direction  of 
God  in  his  gracious  revelation.  In  its  second  aspect,  then, 
we  perceive  Calvin  <  arefully  framing  his  definition  so  as  to 
exclude  all  "will-worship"  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
condemnation  of  the  "formal  worship"  and  "ostentation  in 
ceremonies"  which  had  become  prevalent  in  the  old  Church. 
The  position  he  takes  up  here  is  essentially  that  which  has 
come  down  to  us  under  the  name  of  "the  Puritan  principle". 
Religion  consists,  of  course,  not  in  the  externalities  of  wor- 
ship, but  in  faith,  united  with  a  serious  fear  of  God,  and  a 
willing  reverence.  But  its  external  expression  in  worship 
is  not  therefore  unimportant,  but  is  to  be  strictly  confined  to 
what  is  prescribed  by  God :  to  "legitimate  worship,  agreeable 
to  the  injunctions  of  the  law"  (I.  ii.  2  ad  fin.).  This  declara- 
tion is  returned  to  and  expounded  in  a  striking  section  of  the 


1 4-' 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


fourth  chapter  (I.  iv.  3;  cf.  I.  v.  13),  where  Calvin  insists 
that  "the  divine  will  is  the  perpetual  rule  to  which  true 
religion  is  to  be  conformed",  and  asserts  of  newly-invented 
modes  of  worshipping  God,  that  they  are  tantamount  to 
idolatry.  God  cannot  be  pleased  by  showing  contempt  for 
what  He  commands  and  substituting  other  things  which 
He  condemns :  and  none  would  dare  to  trifle  in  such  a  man- 
ner with  Him  unless  they  had  already  transformed  Him  in 
their  minds  into  another  and  different  Being:  and  in  that 
case  it  is  of  little  importance  whether  you  worship  one  god 
or  many.' 

From  this  digression  for  the  sake  of  asserting  the  "Puri- 
tan", that  is,  the  "Reformed",  principle  with  reference  to 
acceptable  worship,  it  is  already  apparent  that  Calvin  did 
not  suppose  that  men  have  been  left  to  the  notitia  Dei  insita 
for  the  framing  of  their  religion,  although  he  is  insistent 
that  therefrom  proceeds  a  propensity  to  religion  which 
already  secures  that  all  men  shall  have  a  religion  (I.  ii.  2). 
On  the  contrary,  he  teaches  that  to  the  ineradicable  revela- 
tion of  Himself  which  He  has  imprinted  on  human  nature, 
God  has  added  an  equally  clear  and  abundant  revelation  of 
Himself  externally  to  us.  As  we  cnnot  know  ourselves 
without  knowing  God.  so  neither  can  we  look  abroad  on 
nature  or  contemplate  the  course  of  events  without  seeing 
Him  in  His  works  and  deeds  (I.  v).  Calvin  is  exc'"pdingly 
emphatic  as  to  the  clearness,  universality  and  convincingness 
of  this  natural  revelation  of  God.  The  whole  world  is  but 
a  theatre  for  the  display  of  the  divine  glory  (I.  v.  5) ;  God 
manifests  Himself  in  every  part  of  it,  and,  turn  our  eyes 
whichever  way  we  will,  we  cannot  avoid  seeing  Him;  for 
there  is  no  atom  of  the  world  in  which  some  sparks  of  His 
glory  do  not  shine  (I.  v.  i ).  So  pervasive  is  God  in  nature, 
indeed,  that  it  may  even  be  said  by  a  pious  mind  that  nature 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    143 

is  God  (I.  V.  5), — though  the  expression  is  too  readily 
misapprehended  in  a  Pantheistic  (I.  v,  5)  or  Materialistic 
(I.  V.  4)  sense  to  justify  its  use.  Accordingly,  no  man  can 
escape  this  manifestation  of  God;  we  cannot  open  our  eyes 
without  seeing  it,  and  the  language  in  which  it  is  delivered 
to  us  penetrates  through  even  the  densest  stupidity  and 
ignorance  (I.  v.  i).  To  every  individual  on  earth,  there- 
fore, with  the  exclusion  of  none  (I.  v.  7),  God  abundantly 
manifests  Himself  (I.  v.  2).  Each  of  the  works  of  God 
invites  the  whole  human  race  to  the  knowledge  of  Him; 
while  their  contemplation  in  the  mass  offers  an  even  more 
prevalent  exhibition  of  Him  (I.  v.  10).  And  so  clear  arc 
His  footsteps  in  His  providence,  that  even  what  are  com- 
monly crlled  accidents  are  only  so  many  proofs  of  His 
activity  (_!.  v.  8). 

In  developing  this  statement  of  the  external  natural  reve- 
lation of  God,  Calvin  presents  first  His  patefaction  in  cre- 
ation (I  v.  1-6),  and  then  His  patefaction  in  providence 
(I.  V.  7-9),  and  under  each  head  lays  the  primary  stress  on 
the  manifestations  of  the  divine  wisdom  and  power  (I.  v. 
2-5,  wisdom;  6,  power;  8,  wisdom  anc!  power).  But  the 
other  attributes  which  enter  into  His  glory  are  not  neglected. 
Thus,  under  the  former  caption,  he  points  out  that  the 
perception  of  the  divine  power  in  creation  "leads  us  to  the 
consideration  of  His  eternity ;  because  He  from  whom  all 
things  derive  their  origin  must  necessarily  be  eternal  and 
self-existent",  while  we  must  postulate  goodness  and  mercy 
as  the  motives  of  His  creation  and  providence  (I.  v.  6). 
Under  the  second  caption,  he  is  particularly  copious  in  draw- 
ing out  the  manifestations  of  the  divine  benignity  and 
beneficence — of  His  clemency — though  he  does  not  scruple 
also  to  point  to  the  signs  of  His  severity  (I.  v.  7,  cf.  10). 
From  the  particular  contemplation  of  the  divine  clemency 


144 


BENJAMIN   B.    WARFIELD 


and  severity  in  their  peculiar  distribution  here,  indeed,  he 
pauses  to  draw  an  argument  for  a  future  Hfe  when  apparent 
irregularities  will  be  adjusted  (I.  v.  lo). 

The  vigor  and  enthusiasm  with  which  Calvin  prosecutes 
his  exposition  of  the  patefaction  of  God  in  nature  and 
history  is  worth  emphasizing  further.  He  even  turns  aside 
(I.  V.  9)  to  express  his  special  confidence  in  it,  in  contrast  to 
a  priori  reasoning,  as  the  "right  way  and  the  best  method 
of  seeking  God".  A  speculative  inquiry  into  the  essence  of 
God,  he  suggests,  merely  fatigues  the  mind  and  flutters  in 
the  brain.  If  we  would  know  God  vitally,  in  our  hearts,  let 
us  rather  contemplate  Him  in  His  works.  These,  we  shall 
find,  as  the  Psalmist  points  out,  declare  His  greatness  and 
conduce  to  His  praise.  Once  more,  we  may  observe  here  the 
concreteness  of  Calvin's  mind  and  method,  and  are  re- 
minded of  the  practical  end  he  keeps  continually  in  view." 
So  far  is  he  from  losing  hi:oself  in  merely  speculative  elab- 
orations or  prosecuting  his  inquiries  under  the  spur  of  "pre- 
sumptuous curiosity",  that  the  practical  religious  motive  is 
always  present,  dominating  his  thought.  His  special  inter- 
est in  the  theistic  argument  is,  accordingly,  due  less  to  the 
consideration  that  it  rounds  out  his  systematic  view  of  truth 
than  to  the  fact  that  it  helps  us  to  the  vital  knowledge  of 
God.  And  therefore  he  is  no  more  anxious  to  set  it  forth 
in  its  full  force  than  he  is  to  point  out  the  limitations  which 
affect  its  practical  value.'''  In  and  of  itself,  indeed,  it  has 
no  limitations:  Calvin  is  fully  assured  of  its  validity  and 
analyses  its  data  with  entire  confidence:  to  him  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  in  the  mirror  of  His  works  God 
gives  us  clear  manifestations  both  of  Himself  and  of  His 
everlasting  dominion  (I  v.  ii).  But  Calvin  cannot  content 
himself  with  an  intellectualistic  contemplation  of  the  objec- 
tive validity  of  the  theistic  argument.    So  dominated  is  he 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     145 

by  practical  interests  that  he  actually  attaches  to  the  chapter 
in  which  he  argues  this  objective  validity  a  series  of  sections 
in  which  he  equally  strongly  argues  the  subjective  inability 
of  man  to  receive  its  testimony.  Objectively  valid  as  the 
theistic  proofs  are,  they  are  ineffective  to  produce  a  just 
knowledge  of  God  in  the  sinful  heart.  The  insertion  of 
these  sections  here  is  the  more  striking  that  they  almost 
seem  unnecessary  in  view  of  the  clear  exposition  of  the 
noetic  effects  of  sin  which  had  been  made  in  the  preceding 
chapter  (ch.  iv), — although,  of  course,  there  the  immediate 
reference  was  to  the  notitia  Dei  insita,  while  here  it  is  to 
the  notitia  Dei  acquisita. 

Thus,  however,  our  attention  is  drawn  very  pointedly  to 
Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  disabilities  with  reference  to  the 
knowledge  of  God  which  are  induced  in  the  human  mind 
by  sin.  He  has,  as  has  just  been  noted,  adverted  formally 
to  them  twice  in  these  opening  chapters  of  his  treatise, — on 
the  earlier  occasion  (ch.  iv)  with  especial  reference  to  the 
revelation  of  God  made  in  the  constitution  of  human  nature, 
and  on  the  later  occasion  (ch.  v,  §§  11 -15)  with  especial 
reference  to  the  revelation  of  God  made  in  His  works  and 
deeds.  Were  man  in  his  normal  state,  he  could  not  under 
this  double  revelation,  internal  and  external,  fail  to  know 
God  as  God  would  wish  to  be  known.  If  he  actually  comes 
short  of  an  adequate  knowledge  of  God,  therefore,  this 
cannot  be  attributed  to  any  shortcomings  in  the  revelation 
of  God.  Calvin  is  perfectly  clear  as  to  the  objective  ade- 
quacy of  the  general  revelation  of  God.  Men,  however,  do 
come  short  of  an  adequate  knowledge  of  God ;  and  that  not 
merely  some  men,  but  all  men:  the  failure  of  the  general 
revelation  of  God  to  produce  in  men  an  adequate  knowledge 
of  Him  is  as  universal  as  is  the  revelation  itself.     The 

explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  corruption  of  men's  hearts 
11 


146 


BENJAMIN    B.    WAKFIELD 


by  sin.  by  which  not  merely  are  they  rendered  incapable  of 
reailinjj  off  the  revelation  of  God  which  is  displayed  in  His 
works  and  deeds,  but  their  very  instinctive  knowledge  of 
God.  embedded  in  their  constitution  as  men,  is  dulled  and 
almost  obliterated.  The  energy  with  which  Calvin  asserts 
this  is  almost  startling,  and  matches  in  its  emphasis  that 
which  he  had  placed  on  tlie  reality  and  objective  validity  of 
tiie  revelation  of  God.  Though  the  seeds  of  religion  are 
sown  by  God  in  every  heart,  yet  not  one  man  in  a  hundred 
has  preserved  even  these  seeds  sound,  and  in  no  one  at  all 
have  they  grown  to  t'<"ir  legitimate  harvest.  All  have  de- 
generated from  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  and  genuine 
piety  has  perished  from  the  earth  (I.  iv.  i).  The  light 
which  God  has  kindled  in  the  breasts  of  men  has  been  smoth- 
ered and  all  but  extinguished  by  their  iniquity  (I.  iv.  4). 
The  manifestation  which  God  has  given  of  Himself  in  the 
structure  and  orginization  of  the  world  is  lost  on  our  stu- 
pidity (I.  V.  11).  The  rays  of  God's  glory  are  diffused  all 
around  us.  but  do  not  illuminate  the  darkness  of  our  mind 
(I.  V.  14).  So  that  in  point  of  fact,  "men  who  are  taught 
only  by  nature,  have  no  certain,  sound  or  distinct  knowl- 
edge, but  are  confined  to  confused  principles;  they  worship 
accordingly  an  unknown  God"  (T.  v.  12  ad  fin.)  :  "no  man 
can  liave  the  least  knowledge  of  true  and  sound  doctrine 
without  having  been  a  disciple  of  the  Scriptures"  (I.  vi.  2 
ad  fill. )  :  "the  human  mind  is  through  its  iml)ecility  unable 
to  attain  any  knowledge  of  God  without  the  assistance  of 
the  Sacred  Word"  CI.  vi.  4  ad  fin.). 

Calvin  therefore  teaches  with  great  emphasis  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  the  natural  knowledge  of  God.  We  must  keep 
fully  in  mind,  however,  that  this  is  not  due  in  his  view  to 
any  inadequacy  or  ineffectiveness  of  natural  revelation, 
considered  objectively.*     He  continues  to  insist  that  the 


Calvin's  doctrine  ok  the  knowledge  of  god     147 

seeds  of  religion  are  sown  in  every  lieart  (I.  v.  i  ad  init.) ; 
that  through  all  man's  corruption  the  instincts  of  nature 
still  suggest  the  memory  of  God  to  his  mind  (I.  v.  2)  ;  that 
it  is  impossible  to  eradicate  that  sense  of  the  deity  which  is 
naturally  engraved  on  all  hearts  (I.  v.  4  ad  fin.)  ;  that  the 
structure  and  organization  of  the  world,  and  the  things 
that  daily  happen  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  that 
is  under  the  providential  government  of  God,  bear  a  witness 
to  God  which  the  dullest  ear  cannot  fail  to  hear  (I.  v.  i,  3, 
7,  esp.  II.  vi.  I ) ;  and  that  the  light  that  shines  from  crea- 
tion, while  it  may  be  smothered,  cannot  be  so  extinguished 
but  that  some  rays  of  it  find  their  way  into  the  most  dark- 
ened soul  (I.  vi.  14).    God  has  therefore  never  left  Himself 
without  a  witness;  but,  "with  various  and  most  abundant 
benignity  sweetly  allures  men  to  a   knowledge  of   Him, 
though  they  persist  in  following  their  own  ways,  their  per- 
nicious and  fatal  errors"  (I.  vi.  14).    The  sole  cause  of  the 
failure  of  the  natural  revelation  is  to  be  found,  therefore, 
in  the  corruption  of  the  human  heart.     Two  results  flow 
from  this  fact.    First,  it  is  not  a  question  of  the  extinction 
of  the  knowledge  of  God.  but  of  the  corruption  of  the 
knowledge  of  God.    And  secondly,  men  are  without  excuse 
for  their  corruption  of  the  knowledge  of  God.     On  both 
points  Calvin  is  insistent. 

He  does  not  teach  that  all  religion  has  perished  out 
of  the  earth,  but  only  that  no  "genuine  piety"  remains 
(I.  iv.  I  ad  init.):  lie  does  not  teach  that  men  retain  no 
knowledge  of  God,  but  no  "certain,  sound  or  distinct 
knowledge"  (I.  v.  12  ad  fin.).  The  seed  of  religion  remains 
their  inalienable  possession,  "but  it  is  so  corrupted  as  to 
produce  only  the  worst  fruits"  (I.  v.  4  ad  fin.).  Here  we 
see  Calvin's  judgment  on  natural  religion.  Its  reality  he 
is  quick  to  assert :  but  equally  quickly  its  inadequacy — and 


148 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARKIELD 


tliat  because  not  merely  of  a  negative  incompleteness  but 
also  of  a  positive  corruption.  Men  have  corrupted  the 
knowledge  of  God ;  and  perhaps  Calvin  might  even  sub- 
scribe the  declaration  of  a  modern  writer  that  men's  relig- 
ions are  their  worst  crimes."  Certainly  Calvin  paints  in 
dark  colors,  the  processes  by  which  men  form  for  them- 
selves conceptions  of  God  under  the  light  of  nature,  or 
rather,  in  the  darkness  of  their  minds,  from  which  the  light 
of  nature  is  as  far  as  lies  in  their  power  excluded.  "Their 
conceptions  of  God  are  formed,  not  according  to  the  rep- 
resentations He  gives  of  Himself,  but  by  the  invention 
of  their  own  presumptuous  imagii  .tions"  (I.  iv.  i  wed.). 
They  set  Him  far  off  from  themselves  and  make  Him  a 
mere  idler  in  heaven  (I.  iv.  2)  ;  they  invent  all  sorts  of 
vague  and  confused  notions  concerning  Him,  until  they 
involve  themselves  in  such  a  vast  accumulation  of  errors 
as  almost  to  extinguish  the  light  that  is  within  them  (I. 
iv.  4) ;  they  confuse  Him  with  His  works,  until  even  a 
Plato  loses  himself  in  the  round  globe  (I.  v.  11)  ;  they  even 
endeavor  to  deny  His  very  existence  (I.  v.  12),  and  substi- 
tute demons  in  His  place  (I.  v.  13).  Certainly  it  is  not 
surprising,  then,  that  the  Holy  Spirit,  speaking  in  Scripture, 
"condemns  as  false  and  lying  whatever  was  formerly  wor- 
shipped as  divine  among  the  Gentiles",  nay,  "rejects  as  false 
every  form  of  w^orship  which  is  of  human  contrivance",  and 
"leaves  no  Deity  bvtt  in  Mount  Zion"  (I.  v.  13).  The  re- 
ligions of  men  differ,  doubtless,  among  themselves:  some 
are  more,  some  less  evil ;  but  all  are  evil  and  the  evil  of  none 
is  trivial. 

Are  men  to  be  excused  for  this,  their  corruption  of  the 
knowledge  of  God?  Are  we  to  listen  with  sympathy  to 
the  plea  that  light  has  been  lacking?  It  is  not  a  case  of 
insufficient  light,  but  of  an  evil  heart.     Excuses  are  vain, 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     149 

for  this  heart-darkness  is  criminal.  If  we  speak  of  ignor- 
ance here,  we  must  remember  it  is  a  giiihy  ignorance;  an 
ignorance  which  rests  on  pride  and  vanity  and  contumacy 
(I.  iv.  i),  an  ignorance  which  our  own  consciences  will  not 
excuse  (I.  v.  15).  What!  shall  we  plead  that  we  lack  ears 
to  hear  what  even  mute  creatures  proclaim?  that  we  have 
no  eyes  to  see  what  it  needs  no  eyes  to  see?  that  we  are 
mentally  too  weak  to  learn  what  mindless  creatures  teach? 
( I.  V.  1 5 ) .  We  are  ignorant  of  what  all  things  conspire  to  in- 
form us  of.  only  because  we  sinfully  corrupt  their  message: 
their  insufficiency  has  its  roots  in  us,  not  in  them;  wherefore 
we  are  without  excuse  (I.  iv.  i:  v.  14-15).  Our  "folly 
is  inexcusable,  seeing  that  it  originates  not  only  in  a  vain 
curiosity,  but  in  false  confidence,  and  an  immoderate  desire 
to  exceed  the  limits  of  human  knowledge"  (I.  iv.  i  ad  fin.). 
"Whatever  deficiency  of  natural  ability  prevents  us  from 
attaining  the  pure  and  clear  knowledge  of  God,  yet,  since 
that  deficiency  arises  from  our  own  fault,  we  are  left  with- 
out any  excuse"  (I.  v.  15). 

The  natural  revelation  of  God  failing  thus  to  produce  its 
legitimate  efTects  of  a  sound  knowledge  of  God,  because  of 
the  corruption  of  men's  hearts,  we  are  thrown  back  for  any 
adequate  knowledge  of  God  upon  supernatural  activities  of 
God  communicating  His  truth  to  men.  It  is  accordingly 
in  an  assertion  and  validation  of  these  supernatural  reve- 
latory operations  of  God  that  Calvin's  discussion  reaches 
its  true  center.  To  this  extent  his  whole  discussion  of  nat- 
ural revelation — in  its  inception  in  the  implantation  in  man 
of  a  sensus  deifatis,  in  its  culmination  in  *he  patefaction  of 
God  in  His  works  and  deeds,  and  in  its  failure  through  the 
sin-bred  blindness  of  humanity — may  be  said  to  be  merely 
introductorj'  to  and  intended  to  prepare  the  way  for  his 
discussion  of  the  supernatural  operations  of  God  by  which 


I50 


BENJAMIN    n.    VVARKIELD 


He  meets  tliis  utlicrwisc  hojKless  conditi'in  of  humanity 
Slink  in  its  corrupt  notions  of  God.  These  oi)crations  obvi- 
ously must  meet  a  twofold  need.  A  clearer  and  tidier  reve- 
lation of  God  must  be  brou},dit  to  men  than  tliat  wliicli  is 
afforded  hy  nature.  And  the  darkened  minds  of  men  must 
be  illuminated  for  its  recejjtion.  In  other  words,  what  is 
needed,  is  a  sjwcial  sui)ernatural  revelation  ■  m  the  one  hand, 
and  a  special  sui)ernatural  illumination  on  the  other.  It  is 
to  the  validation  of  this  twofold  supernatural  operation  of 
God  in  communicatinjj  the  knowledge  of  Himself  that 
Calvin  accordingly  next  addresses  himself  (chs.  vi-ix). 

One  or  two  peculiarities  of  his  treatment  of  tliein  .ittract 
our  notice  at  the  outset,  and  seem  to  invite  attention,  before 
we  enter  into  a  detailed  exposition  of  the  doctrine  he  pre- 
sents. It  is  noticeable  that  Calvin  does  not  pretend  that 
this  sui)ernatural  provision  of  knowledge  of  God  to  meet 
men's  sin-born  ignorance  is  as  universal  it.  its  reach  as 
the  natural  revelation  which  it  supplements  and,  so  far  as 
efficiency  is  concerned,  supersedes.  On  the  contrary,  lie 
draws  ',t  expressly  into  a  narrower  circle.  That  general 
revelation  "presented  itself  to  all  eyes"  and  "is  more  than 
sufficient  to  deprive  the  ingratitude  of  men  of  ever)-  excuse, 
since",  in  it,  "God,  in  order  to  involve  all  mankind  in  the 
same  guilt,  sets  an  exhibition  of  His  majesty,  delineated  in 
the  creatures,  before  them  all  without  exception"  (I.  vi.  i  ad 
iitit.).  But  His  supernatural  revelation  He  grants  only  "to 
those  whom  He  intends  to  unite  in  a  more  close  and  familiar 
connection  with  Himself"  (ibid.) ;  "to  those  to  whom  He 
has  determined  to  make  His  instructions  efTectual"  (I.  vi. 
3)  ;  in  a  word,  to  "the  elect"  (I.  vi.  i ;  vii.  5  near  end).  In 
dealing  with  the  sui)ernatural  revelation  of  God,  therefore, 
Calvin  is  conscious  of  dealing  with  a  special  operation  of 
the  divine  grace  I)y  means  of  which  God  is  communicating 


CALVm's   DOCTRINE   OF   THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD       15I 

to  those  He  is  choosing  to  be  His  ix'ople  the  saving  km^wl- 
edge  of  Himself.  It  is  oltservahlc  also  that,  in  speaking  if 
this  stjpernatural  revelation,  he  identifies  it  from  the  outset 
distinctly  with  the  Scriptures  (ch.  vi).  This  is  in  accord- 
ant with  the  pract'cal  end  and  engrossment  which,  as  we 
have  already  had  occasion  to  note,  dominate  his  whole 
discussion.  He  was  not  unaware  that  the  special  revelation 
of  God  antedates  the  Scriptures:  on  occasion  he  speaks 
fliscriminatingly  enough  of  this  revelation  in  itself  and  the 
Scriptures  in  which  it  is  embodied.  But  his  mind  is  less  on 
the  abstract  truth  than  on  the  concrete  conditions  which 
surrounded  him  in  his  work.  Whatever  may  have  been  true 
ages  gone,  to-day  the  special  revelation  of  God  coalesces 
with  the  Scriptures,  and  he  does  not  occupy  himself  for- 
mally with  it  except  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  men  of  his 
own  time.  The  task  which  he  undertakes,  therefore,  is 
distinctly  to  show  that  men  have  in  the  Scriptures  a  special 
revelation  of  God  supplementing  and  so  far  superseding  the 
general  revelation  of  God  in  nature ;  and  that  God  so  oper- 
ates with  this  His  special  revelation  of  Himself  as  to  over- 
come the  sin-bred  disabilities  of  man. 

In  this  state  of  the  case  we  may  perhaps  be  justified  in 
leaving  at  this  point  the  logical  development  of  his  con- 
struction and  expounding  Calvin's  teaching  more  formally 
under  the  heads  of  his  doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture  and  his 
doctrine  of  the  Testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


11.      HOLY   SCRIPTURE. 

First,  then,  what  was  Calvin's  doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture? 

Under  the  designation  of  "Scripture"  or  "the  Scriptures" 
Calvin  understood  that  body  of  writings  which  have  been 
transmitted  to  us  as  the  divinely  given  rule  of  faith  and 
life.    In  this  body  of  writings,  that  is  to  say,  in  "the  Canon 


IS2 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


of  Scripture",  he  included  all  the  hooks  of  the  Old  Covenant 
wiiich  were  recognized  by  the  Jewish  Church  as  of  divine 
fjilt.  and  were  as  such  handed  down  to  the  Christian  Church; 
and  all  the  hooks  of  the  Xcw  Covenant  whicii  have  been 
given  the  Church  by  the  Apostles  as  its  authoritative  law- 
code.  Calvin's  attitude  towards  the  canon  was  thus  somewhat 
more  conservative  than,  say.  Luther's.  He  knew  of  no  such 
distinction  as  that  between  Canonical  and  Deutero-Canon- 
ical  books,  whether  in  the  Okl  or  the  New  Testament.  The 
so-called  "Apocryphal  Books"  of  the  Old  Testament,  in- 
cluded witiiin  the  canon  by  the  decrees  of  Trent,  he  rejected 
out  of  hand:  the  so-called  "Antilegomena"  of  the  New 
Testament  he  accepted  without  exception.'" 

The  representations  which  are  sometimes  made,  to  the 
effect  that  he  felt  doubts  of  the  canonicity  of  some  of  the 
canonical  books  or  even  was  convinced  of  their  uncanon- 
icity,"  rest  on  a  fundamental  misconception  of  his  attitude, 
and  are  wrecked  on  his  express  assertions.  No  doubt  he  has 
not  left  us  commentaries  on  all  the  Biblical  books,  and  no 
doubt  his  omission  to  write  or  lecture  on  certain  books  is  not 
to  lie  explained  merely  by  lack  of  time,  but  involves  an  act 
ot  selection  on  his  part,  which  was  not  unaffected  by  his 
estimate  of  the  relative  importance  of  the  several  books  or 
by  his  own  spiritual  sympathies.'-  He  has  also  occasionally 
employed  a  current  expression,  such  as,  for  example,  "the 
Canonical  Epistle  of  John".'''  when  speaking  of  i  John, 
which,  if  strictly  interpreted,  might  be  thought  to  imply 
denial  of  the  genuineness  of  certain  books  of  the  canon. — 
such  as  2  and  3  John. — and  not  merely  the  momentary  or 
habitual  neglect  of  them:  just  as  the  common  use  of  the 
term  "the  Apostle"  of  Paul  might  be  said,  if  similarly  strictly 
pressed,  to  imply  that  there  was  no  other  Apostle  but  he.  It 
is  also  true  that  he  expresses  himself  with  moderation  when 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     153 

adducing  the  evidence  for  the  canonicity  of  this  book  or  that, 
and  in  his  modes  of  statement  quite  clearly  betrays  his 
recognition  that  the  evidence  is  more  copious  or  more 
weighty  in  some  cases  than  in  others. 

But  he  represents  the  evidence  as  sufficient  in  all  cases 
and  declares  with  confidence  his  conclusion  in  favor  of  the 
canonicity  of  the  whole  body  of  books  which  make  up  our 
Bible,  and  in  all  his  writings  and  controversies  acts  firmly 
on  this  presupposition.  How,  for  example,  is  it  possible 
to  contend  that  some  grave  reason  connected  with  doubts 
on  his  part  of  their  canonical  authority  underlies  the  failure 
of  Calvin  to  comment  on  "the  three  books  attributed  to 
Solomon,  particularly  the  Song  of  Songs",'*  in  the  face 
of  the  judgment  of  the  ministers  of  Geneva  with  regard  to 
Castellion,  which  is  thus  reported  by  Calvin  himself  over 
his  signature.''  "We  unanimously  judged  him  one  who 
might  be  appointed  to  the  functions  of  the  pastor,  except 
for  a  single  obsta.  which  opposed  it.  When  we  asked 
him,  according  to  custom,  whether  he  was  in  accord  with 
us  on  all  points  of  doctrine,  he  icplied  that  there  were  two 
on  which  he  could  not  share  our  views :  one  of  them  .  .  . 
being  our  inscribing  the  Song  of  Solomon  in  the  number 
of  sacred  books.  ...  We  conjured  him  first  of  all,  not 
to  permit  himself  the  levity  of  treating  as  of  no  account 
the  constant  witness  of  the  universal  Church ;  we  reminded 
him  that  there  is  no  book  the  authenticity  of  which  is  doubt- 
ful, about  which  some  discussion  has  not  been  raised;  that 
even  those  to  which  we  now  attach  an  undisputed  authen- 
ticity were  not  admitted  from  the  beginning  without  con- 
troversy ;  that  precisely  this  one  is  one  which  has  never  been 
openly  repudiated.  We  also  exhorted  him  against  trusting 
unreasonably  in  his  own  judgment,  especially  where  nothing 
was  toward  which  all  the  world  had  not  been  aware  of  before 
he  was  born.    ...    All  these  arguments  having  no  effect 


154 


BENJAMIN    B.    VVARFIELD 


on  him,  we  thought  it  necessary  to  consider  among  ourselves 
what  we  ought  to  do.  Our  unanimous  opinion  was  that  it 
would  be  dangerous  and  would  set  a  bad  precedent  to  admit 
him  to  the  ministry  in  these  circumstances.  .  .  .  We 
should  thus  condemn  ourselves  for  the  future  to  raise  no 
objection  to  another,  should  one  present  himself  and  wish 
similarly  to  repudiate  Ecclesiastes  or  Proverbs  or  any  other 
book  of  the  Bible,  without  being  dragged  into  a  debate  as 
to  what  is  and  what  is  not  worthy  of  the  Holy  Spirit."'^ 
Not  merely  the  firmness  with  which  Calvin  held  to  the 
canonicity  of  all  the  books  of  our  Bible,  but  the  import- 
ance he  attached  to  the  acceptance  of  the  canonical  Script- 
ures in  their  integrity,  is  made  perfectly  clear  by  such  an 
incident :  and  indeed  so  also  are  the  grounds  on  which  he 
accepted  these  books  as  canonical. 

Tliese  grounds,  to  speak  briefly,  were  historico-critical. 
Calvin,  we  must  bear  in  mind,  was  a  Humanist  before  he 
was  a  Reformer,*^  and  was  familiar  with  the  whole  process 
of  determining  the  authenticity  of  ancient  documents.  If 
then  he  received  the  Scriptures  from  the  hands  of  the 
Church,  not  indulging  himself  in  the  levity  of  treating  the 
constant  witness  of  the  universal  Church  as  of  no  account, 
he  was  nevertheless  not  disposed  to  take  "tradition"  uncrit- 
ically at  its  face  value.  His  acceptance  of  the  canon  of  the 
Church  was  therefore  not  a  blind  but  a  critically  mediated 
acceptance.  Therefore  he  discarded  the  Apocrypha:  and 
if  he  accepted  the  Antilegomena  it  was  because  they  com- 
mended themselves  to  his  historico-critical  judgment  as 
holding  of  right  a  place  in  the  canon.  The  organon  of  his 
critical  investigation  of  the  canon  was  in  effect  twofold. 
He  inquired  into  the  histor>'  of  the  books  in  question.  He 
inquired  into  their  internal  characteristics.  Have  they  come 
down  to  us  from  the  Apostolic  Church,  commanding  either 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      1 55 

unbrokenly  or  on  the  whole  the  suffrages  of  those  best 
informed  or  best  qualified  to  judge  of  their  canonical 
claims?  Are  they  in  themselves  conformable  to  the  claims 
made  for  them  of  apostolic,  which  is  as  much  as  to  say, 
divine  origin?  It  was  by  the  application  of  this  twofold 
test  that  he  excluded  the  Apocrypha  of  the  Old  Testament 
from  the  canon.  They  had  in  all  ages  been  discriminated 
from  the  canonical  books,  and  differ  from  them  as  the 
writing  of  an  individual  differs  from  an  instrument  which 
has  passed  under  the  eye  of  a  notary  and  been  sealed  to  be 
received  of  all.'*  Some  fathers,  it  is  true,  deemed  them 
canonical;  even  Augustine  was  of  that  way  of  thinking, 
although  he  had  to  allow  that  opinions  differed  widely  upon 
the  matter.  Others,  however,  could  admit  them  to  no  higher 
rank  than  that  of  "ecclesiastical  books",  which  might  be 
useful  to  read  but  could  not  supply  a  foundation  for  doc- 
trine :  among  such  were  Jerome  and  Rufinus.'"  And,  when 
we  obstne  their  contents,  no  sane  mind  will  fail  to  pass 
judgment  against  them.'*"  Rome  may,  indeed,  find  her  in- 
terest in  defending  them,  for  she  may  discover  support  in 
them  for  some  of  her  false  teachings.  But  this  very  fact  is 
their  Condemnation.  "I  beg  you  to  observe",  he  says  of  the 
closing  words  of  2  Maccabees,  where  the  writer  sets  his  hope 
in  his  own  works :  "I  beg  you  to  observe  how  far  this  con- 
fession falls  away  from  the  majesty  of  the  Holy  Spirit"^' — 
that  is  to  say,  from  the  constant  teaching  of  Holy  Scripture. 
And  it  was  by  the  application  of  the  same  two-fold  test 
that  he  accredited  the  Antilegomena  of  the  New  Testament 
as  integral  parts  of  the  canon.  In  the  "Preface"  which  he 
has  prefixed  to  2  Peter,  for  example,  he  notes  that  Eusebius 
speaks  of  some  who  rejected  it.  "If  it  is  a  question",  he 
adds,  "of  yielding  to  the  simple  authority  of  men.  since 
Eusebius  does  not  name  those  who  brought  the  matter  into 


i=;6 


KENJAMIX    n.    WAUFIELD 


clou'ut.  no  necessity  seems  to  be  laid  on  us  to  credit  these 
unknown  people.  And,  moreover,  he  adds  that  afterwards 
it  was  generally  received  without  contradiction.  ...  It 
is  a  matter  agreed  upon  by  all,  of  common  accord,  that  there 
is  nothing  in  this  Epistle  unworthy  of  Saint  Peter,  but  that, 
on  tlie  contrary,  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other,  there  are 
apparent  the  force,  vehemence  and  grace  of  the  Spirit  with 
which  the  Apostles  were  endowed.  .  .  .  Since,  then,  in 
all  parts  of  the  Epistle  the  majesty  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  is 
clearly  manifest,  I  cannot  reject  it  entirely,  although  I  do 
not  recognize  in  it  the  true  and  natural  phrase  of  Saint 
Peter."--  To  meet  tlie  difficulty  a-  'sing  from  the  difference 
of  the  style  from  that  of  i  Peter,  he  therefore  supposed  that 
the  Epistle  is  indeed  certainly  Peter's,  since  otherwise  it 
would  be  a  forgery,  a  thing  inconceivable  in  a  book  of  its 
high  cbaracter,23  but  was  dictr;ted  in  his  old  age  to  some 
one  of  his  disciples,  to  whom  it  owes  its  peculiarities  of 
diction.  Here  we  have  an  argument  conducted  on  the  two 
grounds  of  the  external  witness  of  the  Church  and  the 
internal  testimony  of  the  contents  of  the  book:  and  these 
are  the  two  grounds  on  which  he  everywhere  depends.  Of 
the  Epistle  of  Jude  he  says  :-*  "Because  the  reading  of  it 
is  vtr\-  useful,  and  it  contains  nothing  that  is  not  in  accord 
with  tlic  inirity  of  the  apostolic  doctrine ;  because  also  it  has 
long  been  held  to  be  authentic  by  all  the  best  men,  for  my 
part,  I  willingly  place  it  in  the  number  of  the  other  epistles." 
In  other  cases  the  external  evidence  of  the  Church  is  not 
explicitly  mentioned  and  the  stress  of  the  argument  is  laid 
on  the  Apostolic  character  of  the  writing  as  witnessed  by  its 
contents.  He  receives  Hebrews  among  the  Apostolic  Epis 
ties  without  difficulty,  because  nowhere  else  is  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  more  clearly  or  simply  declared  and  other  evangel- 
ical doctrines  taught :   surely  it  must  have  been  due  to  the 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god 


^57 


wiles  of  Satan  that  the  Western  Church  so  long  doubted  its 
caicnicity.2*  James  seems  to  him  to  contain  nothing  un- 
worthy of  an  Apostle  of  Christ,  but  to  be  on  the  contrary 
full  of  good  teaching,  valuable  for  all  departments  of  Chris- 
tian living.28  For  the  application  of  this  argument  he  of 
course  takes  his  start  from  the  Homologoumena,  which 
gave  him  the  norm  of  Apostolic  teaching  which  he  used  for 
testing  the  other  books.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  he 
received  even  these  books,  however,  without  critico-histor- 
ical  inquiry:  but  only  that  the  uniform  witness  of  the 
Church  to  their  authority  weighed  with  him  above  all 
grounds  of  doubt.  It  was.  in  a  word,  on  the  basis  of  a 
purely  scientific  investigation  that  Calvin  accredited  to  him- 
self the  canon.  It  had  come  down  to  him  through  the  ages, 
accredited  as  such  by  the  constant  testimony  of  its  proper 
witnesses:  and  it  accredited  itself  to  critical  scrutiny  by 
its  contents.'^'^ 

The  same  scientific  spirit  attended  Calvin  in  his  dealing 
with  the  text  of  Scripture.  As  a  Humanist  he  was  familiar 
with  the  processes  employed  in  settling  the  texts  of  class- 
ical authors ;  and  naturally  he  used  the  same  methods  in  his 
determination  of  the  text  of  the  Biblical  books.  His  prac- 
tice here  is  marked  by  a  combination  of  freedom  and 
sobriety:  and  his  decisions,  though  often  wrong,  as  they 
could  not  fail  to  be  in  the  state  of  the  knowledge  of  the  trans- 
mission of  the  New  Testament  text  at  the  time,  always  man- 
ifest good  sense,  balance  and  trained  judgment.  In  his  re- 
marks on  the  pericope  of  the  adulteress  (Jno.  vii.  53-viii. 
II),  we  meet  the  same  circle  of  ideas  with  which  we  are 
familiar  from  his  remarks  on  the  Antilegomena.  "Because 
it  has  always  been  received  by  the  Latin  Churches  and  is 
found  in  many  of  the  Greek  copies  and  old  writers,  and 
contains  nothing  which  would  be  unworthy  of  an  apostolical 


IvS 


BENJAMIN    B.    WAKFIELD 


spirit,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  refuse  to  take  our 
profit  from  it."-*"  He  accepts  tlie  three-witness  passage  of  I 
Jno.  V.  7.  "Since  the  Greek  codices  do  not  agree  with  them- 
selves", lie  says,  "I  scarcely  dare  reach  a  conclusion.  Yet,  as 
the  context  flows  most  smoothly  if  this  clause  is  added,  and  I 
see  that  it  stands  in  the  best  codices  and  those  of  the  most 
approved  credit,  I  also  willingly  adopt  it."  When  puzzled  by 
difficulties,  he,  quite  like  the  Humanist  dealing  with  a  class- 
ical text,  feels  free  to  suggest  that  there  may  be  a  "mendum 
in  voce".  This  he  docs,  for  example,  in  Matt,  xxiii.  35, 
where  he  adduces  this  possibility  among  others;  and  still 
more  instructively  in  Matt,  xxvii.  9,  where  he  just  as  simply 
assumes  "Jeremiah"  to  be  a  corrupt  reading-^  as  his  own 
editors  assume  that  the  "Apius"  which  occurs  in  the  French 
version  of  the  Institutes  in  connection  with  Josephus  is  due 
to  a  slip  of  his  translators,  not  of  his  own — remarking;  "It 
is  evident  that  it  cannot  be  Calvin  who  translated  this  pas- 
sage."^" His  assurance  that  it  cannot  be  the  Biblical  writer 
who  stumbles  leads  liim  similarly  to  attribute  what  seems  to 
him  a  manifest  error  to  the  copyists.  It  is  only,  however,  in 
such  j)assages  as  these  that  he  engages  formally  in  textual 
emendation.  Ordinarily  he  simply  follows  the  current  text, 
although  he  is,  of  course,  not  without  an  intelligent  ground 
for  his  confidence  in  it.'""  As  we  cursorily  read  his  com- 
mentaries we  feel  ourselves  in  the  hands  of  one  who  is 
sanely  and  sagely  scrutinizing  the  text  with  which  he  is 
dealing  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  scholar  accustomed  to 
deal  with  ancient  texts,  whose  confidence  in  its  general 
integrity  represents  the  well-grounded  conclusion  of  a 
trained  judgment.  His  occasional  remarks  on  the  text,  and 
his  rare  suggestion  of  a  corruption,  are  mdicia  of  the  alert- 
ness of  his  general  scrutiny  of  the  text  and  serve  to  assure 
us  that  his  acceptance  of  it  as  a  whole  as  sound  is  not  merely 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     159 

inert   acquiescence   in   tradition,   but   represents   the   calm 
judgment  of  an  instructed  intelligence. 

INSPIRATION   of  SCRIPTURE. 

Now,  these  sixty-six  books  of  canonical  Scriptures 
handed  down  to  us,  in  the  singular  providence  of  God,"  in 
a  sound  text  which  meets  the  test  of  critical  scrutiny,  Cal- 
vin held  to  be  the  very  Word  of  God.  This  assertion  he 
intended  in  its  simplest  and  most  literal  sense.  He  was  far 
from  overlooking  the  fact  that  the  Scriptures  were  written 
by  human  hands:  he  expressly  declares  that,  though  we 
have  received  them  from  God's  own  mouth,  we  have  never- 
theless received  them  "through  the  ministry  of  men"." 
But  he  was  equally  far  from  conceiving  that  the  relation  of 
their  human  authors  to  their  divine  author  resembled  in  any 
degree  that  of  free  intermediaries,  who,  after  receiving  the 
divine  word,  could  do  with  it  wliat  they  listed.'*  On  the 
contrary,  he  thought  of  them  rather  as  notaries  (IV.  vii.  9), 
who  set  down  in  authentic  registers  (I.  vi.  3)  what  was 
dictated  to  them  (Argiimnitiiw  in  Ev.  Joh.).^''  They  wrote, 
therefore,  merely  as  the  organs  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 'and  did 
not  speak  ex  siio  scnsii,  not  humano  mpulsii,  not  spontc  sua, 
not  arhitric  suo,  but  set  out  only  quae  coelitus  mandat'a 
fuerant.'"'  The  diversity  of  the  human  authors  thus  disap- 
pears for  Calvin  before  the  unity  of  the  Spirit,  the  sole 
responsible  author  of  Scripture,  which  is  to  him  therefore 
not  the  verba  Dei,  but  emphatically  the  verbuni  Dei.^''  It 
is  a  Deo  (Inst.  I.  vii.  5) :  it  has  "come  down  to  us  from  the 
very  mouth  of  God"  (I.  vii.  5)  ;3«  ft  has  "come  down  from 
heaven  as  if  the  living  words  of  God  themselves  were  heard 
in  it"  (I.  vii.  i ) :'»  and  "we  owe  it  therefore  the  same  rever- 
ence which  we  owe  to  God  Himself,  since  it  has  proceeded 
from  Him  alone,  and  there  is  nothing  human  mixed  with  it" 


;  mi 


If)0 


BENJAMIN    15.    WAKllELD 


(Colli,  on  2  Tim.  iii.  16).*"  According  to  this  declaration  the 
Scrii)tures  are  ahogether  divine,  and  in  them,  as  he  puts  it 
energetically  in  another  place,  "it  is  God  who  speaks  with 
us  and  not  mortal  men"  (Com.  on  2  Pet.  i.  20).*'  Accord- 
ingly, he  cites  Scripture  ever>-where  not  as  the  word  of 
man  hut  as  the  pure  word  of  God.  His  "holy  word"  is  "the 
scci)ter  of  God",  every  statement  in  which  is  "a  heavenly 
oracle"  which  "cannot  fail"  (Dedicatory  Epistle  to  the  In- 
stitutes) :  in  it  God  "opens  His  own  sacred  mouth"  to  add 
His  direct  word  to  the  "voice"  of  His  mute  creatures  (I. 
vi.  i).  To  say  "Scripture  says"  and  to  say  "the  Holy 
Ghost  says"  is  all  one.  We  contradict  the  Holy  Spirit,  says 
Calvin — meaning  the  Scriptures — when  we  deny  to  Christ 
the  name  of  Jehovah  or  anything  which  belongs  to  the 
majesty  of  Jehovah  (I.  xiii.  23).  "The  Holy  Spirit  pro- 
nounces", says  he.  .  .  .  "Paul  declares  ...  the 
Scriptures  condemn  .  .  .  wherefore  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing if  the  Holy  Spirit  reject" — all  in  one  running  context, 
meaning  ever  the  same  thing  (I.  v.  13)  :  just  as  in  another 
context  he  uses  interchangably  the  "commandments  of 
Christ"  and  the  "authority  of  Scripture"  of  the  same  thing. 
(Dedicatory  Epistle). 

It  may  be  that  Calvin  has  nowhere  given  us  a  detailed 
discussion  of  the  mode  of  the  divine  operation  in  giving 
the  Scriptures.  He  is  sure  that  they  owe  their  origin  to 
the  divine  gift  (I.  vi.  i,  2,  3)  and  that  God  has  so  given 
them  that  they  are  emphatically  His  word,  as  truly  as  if 
we  were  listening  to  His  living  voice  speaking  from  heaven 
(I.  vii.  i)  :  and,  as  we  have  seen,  he  is  somewhat  addicted 
to  the  use  of  language  which,  strictly  taken,  would  imply 
that  the  mode  of  their  gift  was  "dictation".  The  Scriptures 
are  'public  records'  (I.  vi.  2),  their  human  authors  have 
acted  as  'notaries'  (IV.  viii.  9)  who  have  set  down  nothing 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     i6i 

of  their  own,  but  only  what  has  been  dictated  to  them,  so 
that  there  appears  no  admixture  of  what  is  human  in  their 
product  (on  2  Tim.  iii.  i6).«    It  is  not  unfair  to  urge,  how- 
ever, that  this  language  is  figurative ;  and  that  what  Calvin 
has  in  mind  is  not  to  insist  that  the  mode  of  inspiration  was 
dictation,  but  that  the  result  of  inspiration  is  as  if  it  were 
by  dictation,  viz.,  the  production  of  a  pure  word  of  God 
free  from  all  human  admixtures.    The  term  "dictation"  was 
no  doubt  in  current  use  at  the  time  to  express  rather  the 
effects  than  the  mode  of  inspiration."*-"    This  being  allowed, 
it  is  all  the  more  unfair  to  urge  that.  Calvin's  language 
being  in  this  sense  figurative,  he  is  not  to  be  understood  as 
teaching  that  the  effect  of  inspiration  was  the  production  of 
a  pure  word  of  God.  free  from  all  admixture  of  human 
error.    This,  on  the  contrary,  is  precisely  what  Calvin  does 
teach,  and  that  with  the  greatest  strenuousness.     He  every- 
where asserts  that  the  effects  of  inspiration  are  such  that 
God  alone  is  the  responsible  author  of  the  inspired  product, 
that  we  owe  the  same  reverence  to  it  as  to  God  Himself, 
and  should  esteem  the  words  as  purely  His  as  if  we  heard 
them  proclaimed  with  His  living  voice  from  heaven;  and 
that  there  is  nothing  human  mixed  with  them.     And  he 
everywhere  deals  with  them  on  that  assumption. 

It  is  true  that  men  have  sought  to  discover  in  Calvin,  par- 
ticularly in  his  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  acknowledgments 
of  the  presence  of  human  errors  in  the  fabric  of  Scripture." 
But  these  attempts  rest  on  very  crass  misapprehensions  of 
Calvin's  efforts  precisely  to  show  that  there  are  no  such 
errors  in  tlie  fabric  of  Scripture.  When  he  explains,  for 
example,  that  the  purpose  "of  the  Evangelists" — or  "of  the 
Holy  Spirit",  for  he  significantly  uses  these  designations  as 
synonyms — was  not  to  write  a  chronologically  exact  record, 
but  to  present  the  general  essence  of  things,  this  is  not  to 

13 


1 62 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


allow  that  the  Gospels  err  Inmiatily  in  their  record  of  the 
sequences  of  time,  but  to  assert  that  they  intend  to  give  no 
sequences  of  time  and  therefore  cannot  err  in  this  regard. 
Wlien  again  he  suggests  that  an  "error"  has  found  its  way 
into  tlie  text  of  Matt,  .x.xvii.  9  or  possibly  into  Matt,  xxiii.  35, 
he  is  not  speaking  of  the  original,  but  of  the  transmitted 
text:*''  and  it  would  be  hard  if  he  were  not  permitted  to 
make  such  excursions  into  the  region  of  textual  criticism 
without  laying  himself  open  to  the  charge  of  denying  his 
most  assured  conviction  that  nothing  human  is  mixed  with 
Scripture.  In  point  of  fact,  Calvin  not  only  asserts  the 
freedom  of  Scripture  as  given  by  God  from  all  error,  but 
never  in  his  detailed  dealing  with  Scripture  allows  that  such 
errors  exist  in  it.*'* 

If  we  ask  for  the  ground  on  which  he  asserts  this  high 
doctrine  of  inspiration,  we  do  not  see  that  any  other  reply 
can  be  given  than  that  it  was  on  the  ground  of  the  teaching 
of  Scripture  itself.  The  Scriptures  were  understood  by 
Calvin  to  claim  to  l)e  in  this  high  sense  the  Word  of  God ; 
and  a  critical  scrutiny  of  their  contents  brought  to  him 
nothing  which  seemed  to  him  to  negative  this  claim.  There 
were  other  grounds  on  which  he  might  and  did  base  a  firm 
confidence  in  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures  and  the 
trustworthiness  of  their  teaching  as  a  revelation  from  God. 
But  there  were  no  other  grounds  on  which  he  could  or  did 
rest  his  conviction  that  these  Scriptures  are  so  from  God 
that  there  is  nothing  human  mixed  with  them,  and  their 
even.'  aflfirmation  is  to  be  received  with  the  deference  which 
is  due  to  the  living  voice  of  God  speaking  from  heaven.  On 
these  other  grounds  Calvin  was  led  to  trust  the  teaching  of 
the  Scriptures  as  a  divine  revelation :  and  he  therefore 
naturally  trusted  their  teaching  as  to  their  own  nature  and 
inspiration. 


CALVIN  S  UOCTKINE  Ol    THE   KNC'VLEDGE  OF  GOD      163 

Such,  then,  are  the  Scriptures  ui  concen-ed  by  Calvin: 
sixty-six  sacretl  books,  "dictated"  by  God  to  His  "notaries" 
t^at  they  might,  in  this  "public  record",  stand  .s  a  perpetual 
special  revelation  of  Himself  to  His  people,  to  supplement 
or  to  supersede  in  tiieir  case  tiie  general  revelation  which  He 
gives  of  Himself  in  His  works  and  dct-ds,  but  which  is 
rendered  ineffective  by  the  sin-bred  disabilities  of  the  human 
soul.     For  this,  according  to  Calvn.  is  the  account  to  give 
of  the  origin  of  Scripture,  and  thi    the  account  to  give  of 
the  function  it  serves  in  the  world.    It  was  fn-'cause  man  in 
his  sinful  imbecility  was  unable  to  profit  by  the  general 
revelation  which  God  ha,    spread  before  all  eyes,  so  that 
they  are  all  without  excu*!"   (I.  vi.   i).  that  God  in  His 
goodness  gave  to  "those  whom  He  intended  to  unite  in  a 
more  close  and  familiar  connection  with  Himself",  a  special 
revelation  in  open  speech  (I.  vi.  t ).    And  it  was  because  of 
the  mutability  of  the  human  mind,  prone  to  errors  of  all 
kinds,  corrupting  the  truth,  that  He  committed  this  His 
special  revelation  to  writing,  t.iat  it  might  never  be  inacces- 
sible to  "those  to  whom  He  determined  to  make  His  instruc- 
tions effectual"  (I.  vi.  3).    In  Calvin's  view,  therefore,  the 
Scriptures  are  a  documentation  of  God's  special  revelation 
of  Himself  unto  salvation  (I.  v.  i  ad  init.) ;  but  a  docu- 
mentation cared  for  by  God  Himself,  so  that  they  are.  in 
fine,  themselves  the  special  revelation  of  Goi  unto  salvation 
in  documentary  form  (I.  vi.  2,  3).     The  necessity  for  the 
revelation  documented  in  them  arises  from  the  blindness  of 
men  in  their  sin:   the  necessity  for  the  documentation  of 
this  revelation  arises  from  the  instability  of  men,  even  when 
taught  of  God.    We  must  conceive  of  special  revelation,  and 
of  the  Scriptures  as  just  its  documentation,  therefore,  as 
not  precisely  a  cure,  but  rather  an  assistance  to  man  dulled 
in  his  sight  so  as  not  to  be  able  to  perceive  God  in  His 


m\ 


164 


BENJAMIN    n.    VVARFIELD 


jjcncral  revelation.  "For",  says  Calvin,  "as  jxTSons  who 
are  old.  or  whose  eyes  have  somehow  become  dim.  if  you 
show  them  the  most  beautiful  book,  though  they  iHjrceive 
that  something  is  written  there,  can  scarcely  read  two  words 
together,  yet  by  the  aid  of  siK'ctacles  will  begin  to  read 
distinctly. — so  the  Scripture  .  .  .  "  etc.  (I.  vi.  i).  The 
function  of  Scripture  thus,  as  special  revelation  documented, 
is  to  serve  as  spiritual  spectacles  to  enable  those  of  dulled 
spiritual  sight  to  see  CkxI. 

Of  course,  the  Scriptures  do  more  than  this.  They  not 
only  reveal  the  God  of  Nature  more  brightly  to  the  sin- 
darkened  eye ;  they  reveal  also  the  God  of  Grace,  who  may 
not  be  found  in  nature.  Calvin  does  not  overlook  this  wider 
revelation  embodied  in  them:  he  particularly  adverts  to  it 
(I.  vi.  i).  But  he  turns  from  it  for  the  moment  as  less 
directly  germane  to  his  present  object,  which  is  to  show  that 
without  the  "spectacles"  of  Scripture,  sinful  man  would 
not  be  able  to  attain  to  a  sound  knowledge  of  even  God  the 
Creator.  It  is  on  this,  therefore,  that  he  now  insists.  It 
was  only  because  God  revealed  Himself  in  this  special, 
supernatural  way  to  them,  that  our  first  fathers — "Adan, 
Noah.  .Abraham  and  the  rest  of  the  patriarchs" — were  able 
to  retain  Him  in  their  knowledge  d.  vi.  i).  It  was  only 
through  this  special  revelation,  whether  renewed  to  th;m 
by  God.  or  handed  down  in  tradition  "by  the  ministry  of 
men",  that  their  posterity  continued  in  the  knowledge  of 
God  (I.  vi.  2).  "At  length,  that  the  truth  might  remain  in 
the  world  in  a  continual  course  of  instruction  to  all  ages. 
God  determined  that  the  same  oracles  which  He  deposited 
with  the  patriarchs,  should  be  committed  to  public  rec- 
ords"— first  the  Law,  then  the  Prophets,  and  then  the  books 
of  the  New  Covenant  CI.  vi.  2.  3).  It  is  now.  therefore, 
only  through  these  Scriptures  that  man  can  attain  to  a  true 


CAt.V!N*S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      165 


knowledge  of  God.  The  revelation  of  God  in  His  works 
is  nf )t  useless :  it  makes  all  men  without  excuse :  it  provides 
an  additional  though  lower  and  less  certain  revelation  of 
God  to  His  people — to  a  consideration  of  which  all  should 
seriously  apply  themselves,  though  they  should  principally 
attend  to  the  Word  (I.  vi.  2).  But  experience  shows  that 
without  the  Word  the  sinful  human  mind  is  too  weak  to 
reach  a  sound  knowledge  of  God.  and  therefore  without  it 
men  wander  in  vanity  and  error.  Calvin  seems  to  speak 
sometimes  almost  as  if  the  Scriptures,  that  is  special  revela- 
tion, wholly  superseded  general  revelation  (I.  v.  12  ad  fin.; 
vi.  2  ad  fin.;  4  ad  fin.).  More  closely  scrutinized  it  becomes 
evident,  however,  that  he  means  only  that  in  the  absence  of 
Scripture,  that  is  of  special  revelation,  the  general  revelation 
of  God  is  ineffective  to  preserve  any  sound  knowledge  of 
Him  in  the  world :  but  in  the  presence  of  Scripture,  general 
revelation  is  not  set  aside,  but  rather  brouglit  back  to  its 
proper  validity.  The  real  relation  between  general  and 
special  revelation,  as  the  matter  lay  in  Calvin's  mind,  thus 
proves  to  be,  not  that  the  one  supersedes  the  other,  but  that 
special  revelation  supplements  general  revelation  indeed, 
but  in  the  first  instance  rather  repeats  and  by  repeating 
vivifies  and  vitalizes  general  revelation,  and  flows  conflu- 
ently  in  with  it  to  the  one  end  of  both,  the  knowledge  of 
God  (I.  vi.  2).  What  special  revelation  is.  therefore. — and 
the  Scriptures  as  its  documentation — is  very  precisely  rep- 
resented by  the  figure  of  the  spectacles.  It  is  aid  to  the 
dulled  vision  of  sinful  man,  to  enable  it  to  see  God. 

The  question  forcibly  presents  itself,  however,  wliether 
"spectacles"  will  serve  the  purpose  here.  Has  not  Calvin 
painted  the  sin-bred  blindnesr  nf  men  too  blackly  to  encour- 
age us  to  think  it  can  be  corrected  by  such  an  aid  to  any 
remainders  of  natural  vision  which  may  be  accredited  to 
them?     The  answer  must  be  in  the  affirmative.     But  this 


i66 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


only  oiKMis  tlic  way  to  point  out  that  Calvin  does  not  present 
special  revelation,  or  the  Scriptures  as  special  revelation 
(liicunientctl.  as  the  entire  cure,  but  places  l)y  the  side  of 
it  the  tcstiinoniiiiii  Sf^iriiiis  Siiiicti.  Special  revelation,  or 
Scripture  as  its  documented  form,  provides  in  point  of 
fact,  in  the  view  of  Calvin,  only  the  objective  side  of  the 
cure  he  finds  has  Inien  provided  by  God.  The  subjective  side 
is  provided  by  the  tcstiinotiiuiii  Sl>iritiis  Sancti.  The  ^\kc- 
tades  are  provided  by  tlic  Scriptures :  the  eyes  are  opened 
tliat  tiny  luay  see  even  tlirouy;h  these  spectacles,  only  by 
the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  the  heart.  We  perceive,  then, 
that  in  Calvin's  view  tlie  fit;ure  of  the  spectacles  is  a  per- 
fectlv  just  one.  He  means  to  intimate  that  special  revela- 
titMi  alone  will  not  jjroduce  a  knowledjje  of  God  in  the 
human  soul:  that  something  more  than  external  aid  is 
needed  before  the  soul  can  see:  and  to  leave  tlie  way 
o])e;!  to  point  out  what  further  is  required  that  sinful 
man  niav  see  God.  Sinful  man,  we  say  a|:jain :  for  the 
whole  crux  lies  there.  Had  there  been  no  sin,  there  would 
have  been  no  need  of  even  S|)ecial  revelation.  In  the  li£»ht 
of  the  splendid  revelation  of  Himself  which  God  has  dis- 
plaved  in  the  theatre  of  nature,  man  with  his  native  en- 
dowment of  instinctive  knowledjje  of  God  would  have 
bloomed  out  into  a  full  and  sound  knowledp^c  of  Him.  But 
with  sinful  man.  the  matter  is  wholly  different.  He  needs 
more  li;.,dit  anrl  he  needs  something^  more  than  light — he 
needs  the  jMnvcr  of  sight. ^"  Tiiat  we  may  apprehend 
Calvin's  thought,  therefore,  we  must  turn  to  the  considera- 
tion of  his  doctrine  of  the  Testimony  of  the  Spirit. 


III.       TIIF.    TKSTIMONV    OI'    TIIK    SPIUIT. 

What  is  Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  Testimony  of  the  Spirit  ? 

The  particular  question  to  which  Calvin  addresses  himself 

vvlien  he  turns  to  the  consideratitm  of  what   he  calls  the 


Calvin's  doctrin'^.  of  the  knowledge  of  god     167 


testimony  of  the  Sp:  'oncerns  the  accrediting  of  Script- 
ure, not  the  assiinik  .  1  of  its  revelatory  contents.  The 
reader  cannot  fail  to  experience  some  disappointment  at 
this.  The  whole  development  of  the  discussion  hitherto 
undoubtedly  fosters  the  expectation,  not,  indeed,  of  an  ex- 
clusive treatment  of  the  assimilation  of  special  revelation 
by  sinful  man — for  both  problems  are  raised  by  it  and  the 
two  problems  are  at  bottom  one  and  their  solution  one — 
but  certainly  of  some  formal  treatment  of  it,  and  indeed  of 
such  a  treatment  of  the  double  problem  that  the  stress 
should  be  laid  on  this.  Calvin,  however,  is  preoccupied  with 
the  problem  of  the  accrediting  of  Scripture.  This  is  due  in 
part,  doubtless,  to  its  logical  priority:  as  he  himself  re- 
marks, we  cannot  "be  established  in  the  belief  of  the  doc- 
trine, till  we  are  indubitably  persuaded  that  God  is  its 
Author"  (I.  vii.  4  ad  init.).  But  it  was  rendered  almost  in- 
evitable by  the  state  of  the  controversy  with  Rome,  who  in- 
trenched herself  in  the  position  that  the  Protestant  appeal 
to  Scripture  as  over  against  the  Church  was  inoperative, 
seeing  that  it  is  only  by  the  Church  that  the  Scriptures  can 
be  established  in  authority:  for  who  but  the  Church  can 
assure  us  that  these  Scriptures  are  from  God,  or  indeed 
what  books  enter  into  the  fabric  of  Scripture,  or  whether 
they  have  come  down  to  us  uncorrupted?  As  a  practical 
man  writing  to  practical  men  for  a  practical  purpose,  Calvin 
could  not  fail,  perhaps,  to  give  his  primary  attention  to  the 
aspect  of  the  problem  he  had  raised  which  was  most  immedi- 
ately pressing.  But  this  scarcely  prepares  us  for  the  almost 
total  neglect  of  its  other  aspect,  with  the  effect  that  the  con- 
struction of  his  general  doctrine  is  left  with  a  certain  appear- 
ance of  incompleteness.  Not  really  incomplete ;  for  the  solu- 
tion of  the  one  problem  is,  as  we  have  already  suggested,  the 
solution  of  the  other  also ;  and  even  the  cursory  reader — or 


i68 


BENJAMIN    il.    WARFIELD 


IKThaps  we  may  say  especially  the  cursory  reader — may  well 
be  trusted  to  feel  this  as  he  is  led  on  through  the  discussion, 
particularly  as  there  are  not  lacking  repeated  suggestions  of 
it.  and  the  discussion  closes  with  a  direct  reference  to  it 
and  a  formal  postponement  of  the  particular  discussion  of 
the  other  aspect  of  the  double  problem  to  a  later  portion  of 
the  treatise.  "I  i)ass  over  many  things  for  the  present", 
says  Calvin,  "because  this  subject  will  present  itself  'or 
discussion  in  another  place.  Only,  let  it  be  known  here  that 
that  alone  is  true  faith  which  the  Spirit  of  God  seals  in  our 
hearts.  And  with  this  one  reason  every  reader  of  docility 
and  modesty  will  be  satisfied"  (I.  vii.  5,  near  the  end). 
That  is  as  much  as  to  say,  This  whole  subject  is  only  one 
ap|)lication  of  the  general  doctrine  of  faith;  and  as  the 
general  doctrine  of  faith  is  fully  discussed  at  another  place 
in  this  treatise,  we  may  content  ourselves  here  with  the 
somewhat  incomplete  remarks  we  have  made  upon  this 
special  application  of  that  doctrine ;  we  only  need  to  remind 
the  reader  that  there  is  no  true  faith  except  that  which  is 
begotten  in  the  soul  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

We  can  scarcely  wonder  that  Calvin  contents  himself 
with  this  simple  reference  of  the  topic  now  engaging  his 
attention,  as  a  specific  case,  to  the  generic  doctrine  of  faith, 
when  we  pause  to  realize  how  nearly  this  simple  reference 
of  it,  as  a  s|>ecics  to  its  genus,  comes  to  a  sufficient  exposi- 
tion of  it.  We  shall  stop  now  to  signalize  only  two  points 
which  are  involved  in  this  reference,  the  noting  of  which 
will  greaUy  facilitate  our  apprehension  of  Calvin's  precise 
meaning  in  his  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  the 
divi-  .ty  of  Scripture,  which  is  the  cjuestion  that  more  partic- 
ularly engages  his  attention  here.  This  doctrine  is  no  isolated 
doctrine  with  Calvin,  standing  out  of  relation  with  the  other 
doctrines  of  his  system :  it  is  but  one  application  of  his  gen- 


CAI.VIN  S   DOCTRINE   OF   THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD       169 

eral  doctrine  of  faith ;  or  to  be  more  sfjecific.  one  application 
of  his  general  doctrine  of  tlie  function  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
the  pro(hiction  of  faith.  Given  Calvin's  general  doctrine  of 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  applying  salvation,  and  his 
specific  doctrine  of  the  testimonium  Spirittts  Sancti  in  the 
attestation  of  Scripture,  and  in  the  applying  of  its  doctrine 
as  well,  was  inevitable.  It  is  but  one  application  of  the 
general  doctrine  that  there  is  no  true  faith  except  that  which 
the  Spirit  of  Go<l  seals  in  our  hearts.  For  Calvin  in  this 
doctrine — and  this  is  the  second  point  we  wish  to  signalize — 
has  in  mind  specifically  "true  faith".  He  is  not  asking  here 
how  the  Scriptures  may  lie  proved  to  be  from  God.  If  that 
had  been  the  question  he  was  asking,  he  would  not  have 
hesitated  to  say  that  the  testimony  of  the  Church  is  con- 
clusive of  the  fact.  He  does  say  so.  "The  universal  judg- 
ment of  the  Church"  (I.  vii.  3  ad  fin.)  he  represents  as  a 
ver>-  useful  argument,  "the  consent  of  the  Church"  ( I.  viii.  12 
ad  init.)  as  a  very  important  consideration,  in  establishing 
the  divine  orit,Mn  of  the  Scriptures:  although,  of  course,  he 
does  not  conceive  the  Church  as  lending  her  authority  to 
Scripture  "when  she  receives  and  seals  it  with  her  suflf- 
rage",  but  rather  as  performing  a  duty  of  piety  to  herself 
in  recognizing  what  is  true  apart  from  her  authentication, 
and  treating  it  with  due  veneration  (I.  vii.  2  ad  fin.).  For 
what  is  more  her  duty  than  "obediently  to  embrace  what  is 
from  God  as  the  sheep  hear  the  voice  of  the  shepherd"?*^ 
Were  it  a  matter  of  proving  the  Scriptures  to  be  the  Word 
of  God.  Calvin  would,  again,  liave  been  at  no  loss  for  rational 
arguments  which  he  was  rea<ly  to  pronounce  irresistible 
He  does  adduce  such  arguments  and  he  does  pronounce 
them  irresistible.  He  devotes  a  whole  chapter  to  the  adduc- 
tion of  these  arguments  (ch.  viii), — such  arguments  as 
these:    the  dignity  of  the  subject-matter  of  Scripture — the 


170 


r.KNJAMIN    B.    WAUFIELD 


lKa\  ciiliiit'ss  of  its  doctrine  and  the  consent  of  .ill  its  parts — 
(S  1  ).  ll>e  majesty  of  its  style  (  S  _'),  the  anti(iuity  of  its 
teaching  (Ji  3).  the  sincerity  of  its  narrative  (§  4).  its 
miracnlous  acconi])aiiinient,  circumstantially  confirmed  (§§ 
5.  6),  its  i)redictive  contents  authenticated  by  fulfilment 
(SS  7.  8),  its  continuous  use  through  so  many  ages  (§§ 
0-1 J ),  its  sealing  hy  martyr  blood  (J;  13)  :  and  these  argu- 
ments he  is  so  far  from  considering  weak  and  inconclusive 
(I.  viii.  13  incd.)  that  he  represents  them  rather  as  capable 
of  completely  vindicating  the  Scriptures  against  .ill  the  sul)- 
tleties  of  their  calumniators  (ibid.).  Nay,  he  declares  that 
the  i)roofs  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures  are  so 
cogent,  as  "certainly  to  evince,  if  there  is  a  God  in  heaven, 
that  He  is  the  author  of  the  Law.  and  the  Prophecies,  and 
the  Gosjjer*  (I.  vii.  4.  near  the  l)eginning)  ;  as  to  extort 
with  certainty  from  all  who  are  not  wholly  lost  to  shame, 
the  confession  of  the  divine  gift  of  the  Scriptures  (ibid.).*^ 
"Though  I  am  far  from  possessing  any  peculiar  dexterity" 
in  argument  "or  eloquence",  he  says,  "yet  were  I  to  contend 
with  the  iTiost  subtle  despisers  of  God.  who  are  ambitious  to 
displ.\v  their  wit  and  their  skill  in  weakening  the  authority 
of  Scripture.  I  trust  I  should  be  able  without  difficulty  to 
silence  their  obstrei)erous  clamor"  (ibid.).  But  objective 
proofs — whether  the  conclusive  testimony  of  witnesses,  or 
the  overwhelming  evidence  of  rational  considerations, — be 
they  never  so  cogent.*"  he  df)es  not  consider  of  themselves 
capable  of  producing  "true  faith".  And  it  is  "true  faith", 
we  repeat,  that  Calvin  has  in  mind  in  his  doctrine  of  the 
testimonium  Spiritus  Sancti.  If  it  seemed  to  him  a  small 
matter  that  man  should  know  that  God  is  if  he  did  not  know 
what  God  is,  it  equally  seemed  to  him  a  small  matter  that 
man  should  know  what  God  is,  in  the  paradigfms  of  the  intel- 
lect, if  he  did  not  really  know  this  God  in  the  intimacy  of 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      I7I 


communion  which  that  phrase  imports.  And  equally  it 
seemed  to  him  utterly  unimportant  that  a  man  should  be 
convinced  by  stress  of  rational  evidence  that  the  Scriptures 
are  the  Word  of  God,  unless  he  practically  embraced  these 
Scriptures  as  the  Word  of  God  and  stayed  his  soul  up)on 
them.  The  knowledge  of  God  which  Calvin  has  in  mind  in 
this  whole  discussion  is,  thus,  a  vital  and  vitalizing  knowl- 
edge of  God,  and  tlie  attestation  of  Scripture  which  he  is 
seeking  is  not  an  attestation  merely  to  the  intelligence  of 
men,  comiwlling  from  them  y)erhaps  a  reluctant  judgment 
of  the  intellect  alone  (since  those  convinced  against  their 
will,  as  the  proverb  has  it.  are  very  apt  to  remain  of  the 
same  opinion  still),  but  such  an  attestation  as  takes  hold  of 
the  whole  man  in  the  roots  of  his  activities  and  controls  all 
the  movements  of  his  soul. 

This  is  so  important  a  consideration  for  the  exact  appre- 
hension of  Calvin's  doctrine  that  it  may  become  us  to  pause 
and  assure  ourselves  of  the  simple  matter  of  fact  from  the 
language  which  Calvin  employs  of  it  in  the  course  of  the 
discussion.  We  shall  recall  that  from  the  introduction  of 
the  topic  of  special  revelation  he  has  in  mind  and  keeps 
before  his  readers'  mind  its  destination  for  the  people  of 
God  alone.  The  provisions  for  producing  a  knowledge  of 
God,  consequent  on  the  inefficiency  of  natural  revelation, 
Calvin  is  careful  to  explain,  are  not  for  all  men,  but  for  "the 
elect"  (I.  vi.  i),  or,  as  they  arc  more  fully  described,  "those 
whom  God  intends  to  unite  in  a  more  close  and  familiar 
connection  with  Himself"  (ibid),  "those  to  whom  He  de- 
termines to  make  His  instructions  effectual"  (I.  vi.  3). 
From  the  first  provisions  of  His  sup>eniatural  dealings, 
therefore.  He  "intends  to  make  His  instructions  effectual". 
More  pointedly  still  he  speaks  of  the  testimonium  Spiritus 
Sancti  as  an  act  in  which  "God  deigns  to  confer  a  singular 


I/-- 


IIINJA.MIN     II.    WAKl  IKI.l) 


power  Mil  His  elect,  whom  He  distin^iishes  from  the  rest 
of  mankind"  (I.  vii.  5 ).•'"'  This  sinj^ilar  power,  now,  is 
nothing'  ch:  but  "savinf^  faith",  and  Calvin  speaks  of  it  in 
all  the  synonymy  of  "saving  faith".  He  calls  it  "true  faith" 
(I.  vi.  5),  "sound  faith"  (I.  vii.  4),  "firm  faith"  (I.  viij. 
13).  "the  faith  of  the  pious"  (I.  vii.  3),  "the  certainty  of 
the  pious"  (I.  vii.  3),  "that  assurance  which  is  essential  to 
true  piety"  (I.  vii.  4),  "saviny^  knowledge"  (I.  viii.  13),  "a 
solid  assurance  of  eternal  life"  (I.  vii.  i).  It  is  the  thing 
which  is  naturally  described  by  this  synonymy  which  Calvin 
fleclares  is  not  ])roduced  in  the  soul  exce])t  by  the  testimony 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  oI)viously  is  nothing  more  than  to 
declare  that  that  faith  which  lays  hold  of  Christ  unto  eternal 
life  is  the  product  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  heart,  and  that 
it  is  one  of  the  exercises  of  this  faith  to  lay  hold  of  the 
revelation  of  this  Christ  in  the  Scriptures  with  assured  con- 
fidence, so  that  it  is  only  he  who  is  led  by  the  Spirit  who 
embraces  these  Scriptures  with  "sound  faith",  that  is,  "with 
that  assurance  which  is  essential  to  true  piety"  (I.  vii.  4). 
What  Calvin  has  in  mind,  in  a  word,  is  simply  an  extended 
comment  on  Paul's  words :  "the  natural  man  receiveth  not 
the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God  .  .  .  but  he  that  is  spir- 
itual judgcth  all  things"  (i  Cor.  ii.  14,  15).*' 

Calvin  does  not  leave  us,  however,  to  gather  from  general 
retnarks  referring  it  to  its  class  or  to  infer  from  its  general 
effects,  what  he  means  by  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  to  the  divinity  of  Scri|)ture,  but  describes  for  us  its 
nature  and  indicates  the  mode  of  its  operation  and  specific 
effects  with  great  exactitude.''-  He  tells  us  that  it  is  a 
"secret"  (I.  vii.  4).  "internal"  (I.  vii.  13),  "inward"  (I.  vii. 
5)  action  of  the  Holy  S])irit  on  the  soul,  by  which  the  soul  is 
"illuminated"  (I.  vii.  3,  4,  5),  so  .is  to  perceive  their  true 
quality  in  the  Scriptures  as  a  divine  book.     We  may  call 


Calvin's  doctrine  ok  the  knowledge  of  god     173 


this  "  an  inward  teaching"  of  the  Spirit  which  produces 
"entire  acquiescence  in  tlie  Scriptures",  so  that  they  are 
self-authenticating  to  the  mind  and  heart  (I.  vii.  5) ;  or  we 
may  call  it  a  "secret  testimony  of  the  Spirit",  by  which  our 
minds  and  hearts  are  convinced  with  a  firmness  superior  to 
all  reason  that  the  Scriptures  are  from  God  (I.  vii.  4).  In 
both  instances  we  are  using  figurative  language.  Precisely 
what  is  produced  by  the  hidden  internal  operation  of  the 
Spirit  on  the  soul  is  a  new  spiritual  sense  (sensus,  I.  vii.  5, 
near  end),  by  which  the  divinity  of  Scripture  is  perceived 
as  by  an  intuitive  perception.  "For  the  Scripture  exhibits 
as  clear  evidence  of  its  truth,  as  white  and  black  things  do 
of  their  color,  and  sweet  and  bitter  things  of  their  taste" 
(I.  vii.  2,  end)  :  and  we  need  only  a  sense  to  discern  its 
divine  quality  to  be  convinced  of  it  with  the  same  immediacy 
and  finality  as  we  are  convinced  by  their  mere  perception  of 
light  or  darkness,  of  whiteness  or  blackness,  of  sweetness 
or  bitterness  (ibid.).  No  conclusions  based  on  "rea.soning" 
or  "!)roofs"  or  founded  on  human  judgment  can  compare  in 
clearness  or  force  with  such  a  conviction,  which  is  instinc- 
tive and  immediate  and  finds  its  ultimate  ground  and 
sanction  in  the  Holy  Spirit  who  has  wrought  in  the  heart 
this  spiritual  sense  which  so  functions  in  recognizing  the 
divine  quality  of  Scripture.  Illuminated  by  the  Spirit  of 
God.  we  believe,  therefore,  not  on  the  ground  of  our  own 
judgment,  or  on  the  ground  of  the  judgment  of  others,  but 
with  a  certainty  above  all  human  judgement,  by  a  spiritual 
intuition."  With  the  utmost  explicitness  Calvin  so  de- 
scribes this  instinctive  conviction  in  a  passage  of  great 
vigor:  "It  is,  therefore",  says  he,  "such  a  persuasion  as 
requires  no  reasons ;  such  a  knowledge  as  is  supported  by  the 
highest  reason  and  in  which  the  mind  rests  with  greater 
security  and  constancy  than  in  any  reasons;  in  fine,  such  a 


174 


BENJAMIN    n.    WARFIELD 


sense  as  cannot  be  produced  but  by  a  revelation  from 
heaven"  (I.  vii.  5).'**  Here  we  are  told  that  it  is  a  pcr- 
suasio.  or  rather  a  notitia,  or  rather  a  sensus.  It  is  a  per- 
suasion which  dcxjs  not  require  reasons. — that  is  to  say.  it  is 
a  state  of  conviction  not  induced  by  arpj^unients,  but  by  direct 
[Hfrccption:  it  is.  that  is  to  say.  a  knowledge,  a  direct  per- 
ception in  accord  with  the  highest  reason,  in  which  the  mind 
rests,  with  an  assurance  not  attainable  by  reasoning;  or  to 
be  more  explicit  still,  it  is  a  sense  which  comes  only  from 
divine  gift.  As  we  have  implanted  in  us  by  nature  a  sense 
which  distinguishes  lietween  light  and  darkness,  a  sense 
which  distinguishes  between  sweet  and  bitter,  and  the  ver- 
dict of  these  senses  is  immediate  and  final ;  so  we  have 
plantefl  in  us  by  the  creative  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  a 
sense  for  the  divine,  and  its  verdict,  too,  is  immediate  and 
final :  the  spiritual  man  discerneth  all  things.  Such,  in 
briefest  outline,  is  Calvin's  famous  doctrine  of  the  testi- 
mony of  tlie  Spirit. 


MODE    OF    THIS    TESTIMONY. 

Certain  further  elucidations  of  its  real  meaning  and 
bearing  appear,  however,  to  be  necessary,  to  guard  against 
misapprehension  of  it.  When  we  speak  of  an  internal  testi- 
mony of  tlw  Holy  Spirit,  it  is  evident  that  we  must  con- 
ceive it  as  presenting  itself  in  one  of  three  ways.  It  may  be 
conceived  as  of  the  nature  of  an  immediate  revelation  to 
each  man  to  whom  it  is  given.  It  may  lie  conceived  as  of  the 
nature  of  a  blind  conviction  produced  in  the  minds  of  its 
recipients.  It  may  be  conceived  as  of  the  nature  of  a 
grounded  conviction,  formed  in  their  minds  by  the  Spirit, 
by  an  act  which  rather  terminates  immediately  on  the  facul- 
ties, enabling  and  effectively  persuading  them  to  reach  a 
conviction  on  grounds  presented  to  them,  than  produces  the 


Calvin's  doctrine  ok  the  knowledge  of  god     175 


conviction  itself,  apart  from  or  without  grounds.  In  whicli 
of  these  ways  did  Calvin  conceive  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit 
as  presenting  itself? 

C^crtainly  not  the  first.  The  testimony  of  the  Spirit  was 
not  to  Calvin  of  the  nature  of  a  prepositional  "revela- 
tion" to  its  recipients.  Of  this  he  sjjeaks  perfectly  explicitly, 
and  indeed  in  his  iMilemic  against  .Anabaptist  mysticism  in- 
sistently. He  does  indeed  connect  the  term  "revelation"  with 
the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  declaring  it,  for  exami)le,  such 
a  sense  (seiisus)  as  can  be  produced  by  nothing  .short  of  "a 
revelation  from  heaven"  (I.  vii.  5,  near  end).  But  his 
jnirpose  in  the  employment  of  this  language  is  not  to  de- 
scribe it  according  to  its  nature,  but  to  claim  for  it  with 
emphasis  a  heavenly  source :  he  means  merely  to  assert  that 
it  is  not  earth-bom,  but  God-wrought,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  intimates  that  in  its  nature  it  is  not  a  prepositional 
revelation,  but  an  instinctive  "sense".  That  he  did  not  con- 
ceive of  it  as  a  prepositional  revelation  is  made  perfectly 
clear  by  his  explicit  assertions  at  the  opening  of  the  discus- 
sion (I.  vii.  I  ad  init.),  that  we  "are  not  favored  with  daily 
oracles  from  heaven",  and  that  the  Scriptures  constitute 
the  sole  body  of  extant  revelations  from  God.  It  is  not 
to  supersede  nor  yet  to  supplement  these  recorded  revela- 
tions that  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  given  us,  he  insists, 
but  to  confirm  them  (I.  ix.  3)  :  or,  as  he  puts  it  in  his 
polemic  against  the  Anabaptists,  "The  office  of  the  Spirit 
which  is  promised  us  is  not  to  feign  new  and  unheard  of 
revelations,  or  to  coin  a  new  system  of  doctrine,  which 
would  seduce  us  from  the  received  doctrine  of  the  Gospel, 
but  to  seal  to  our  minds  the  same  doctrine  which  the  Gospel 
delivers"  (I.  ix.  i  ad  init.). 

In  this  polemic  against  the  Anabaptists  (ch.  ix)  he  gives 
us  an  especially  well-balanced  account  of  the  relations  which 


l-U 


BENJAMIN    r..    WARFIEI.I) 


in  Ills  vi«.\v  obtain  Iwtwcen  tlic  revelation  of  Go«l  and  the 
witness  of  tlie  Spirit.  If  lie  holds  that  the  revelation  of 
Ciod  is  ineffective  without  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  he 
holds  equally  that  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  inconceiv- 
ahle  without  the  revelation  of  (iod  embodied  in  the  Word. 
He  even  declares  that  the  Spirit  is  no  more  the  agent  by 
which  the  Word  is  impressed  on  the  heart  than  the  Word 
is  the  means  by  which  the  illumination  of  the  Spirit  takes 
effect.  "If  apart  from  the  Si)irit  of  God  we  are  utterly 
destitute  of  the  light  of  truth",  he  says  (I.  i.\.  ,^  ml  fin.). 
"equally  the  Word  is  the  instrument  by  ^vhich  the  Lord  dis- 
penses to  iK-lievers  the  illumination  of  the  Spirit."  So  far 
as  the  knowlerlge  of  the  truth  is  concernci'.  we  are  as  help- 
less, then,  witliout  the  Word  as  we  are  without  the  Spirit, 
for  the  whole  function  of  the  Spirit  with  resj>ect  to  the  truth 
is,  not  to  reveal  to  us  the  truth  anew,  much  less  to  reveal 
to  us  new  truth,  but  cfTicaciously  to  confinTi  the  Word,  re- 
vealed in  the  Scriptures,  to  ns,  and  efficaciously  to  impress 
it  on  our  hearts  (I.  ix.  3).  This  Calvin  makes  iperalmnd- 
antly  i>lain  by  an  illustration  and  a  di<lactic  statement  of 
great  clearness.  The  illustration  (I.  ix.  ^^  is  drawn  from 
our  Lord's  dealings  with  His  two  disciples  with  whom  after 
His  rising  He  walked  to  Rnimaus.  "He  opened  tlicir  un 
derstandings".  Calvin  explains,  "not  that  rejecting  the 
Scriptures  they  might  be  wise  of  themselves,  but  that  they 
might  understand  the  Scriptures."  Such  also,  he  says,  is  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  to-day :  for  what  is  it — and  this  is 
the  didactic  statement  to  which  we  have  referred — but  an 
enabling  of  us  by  the  light  of  the  Spirit  to  behold  the  divine 
countenance  in  the  Scriptures  that  so  our  minds  may  l)e 
filled  with  a  solid  reverence  for  the  Word  (I.  ix.  3)  ?  Here 
we  have  tlie  nature  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  and  its 
manner  of  working  and  its  effects,  announced  to  us  in  a 


CAI-VIN  S  DOCTRINE  OK  THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      I  77 


single  clause.  It  is  an  illumination  of  our  mimls,  by  which 
we  are  enabled  to  set  God  in  the  Scriptures,  so  that  we  may 
reverence  them  as  from  Him. 

Other  effect  that  this  Calvin  explicitly  denies  to  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  aii'!  lefends  his  denial  from  the 
charge  of  inconsi  cncy  with  the  stress  he  has  previously 
laid  upon  the  necessity  of  this  testimony  (I.  ix.  3V  It 
is  nf)t  to  deny  the  necessity  of  this  work  of  the  Spirit, 
he  arpiies,  to  confine  it  to  the  express  confirmation  of  the 
Word  and  of  the  revelation  contained  therein.  Nor  is 
it  derotjatory  to  the  Spirit  to  confine  His  operations  now 
to  the  confinnation  «)f  the  revealed  Word.  While  on  the 
other  hand  to  attribute  to  Him  repeated  or  new  revelations 
to  each  of  the  children  of  God,  as  the  mystics  do,  is  derog- 
atory to  the  Word,  which  is  His  inspired  product.  To  lay 
claim  to  the  ixissession  of  such  a  Spirit  as  this,  he  declares, 
is  to  lay  claim  to  the  possession  of  a  different  Spirit  from 
that  which  dwelt  in  Christ  and  the  Apostles — for  their 
Spirit  honored  the  Word — and  a  different  spirit  from  that 
which  was  promised  by  Christ  to  His  disciples — for  this 
Spirit  was  "not  to  si>eak  of  Himself".  It  is  to  lay  claim  to 
a  Si)irit  for  whose  divine  mission  and  character,  moreover, 
we  lack  all  criterion — for  how  can  we  know  that  the  Spirit 
that  s|)eaks  in  us  is  from  Gck!.  save  as  He  honors  the  Word 
of  God  (I.  ix.  I  and  2)?  From  all  which  it  is  perfectly 
plain  not  only  that  Calvin  did  not  conceive  the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit  as  taking  effect  in  the  form  of  propositional 
revelations,  but  that  he  di<l  conceive  it  as  an  operation  of 
God  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  heart  of  man  which  is  so  con- 
nected with  the  revelation  of  God  in  His  Word,  that  it 
manifests  itself  only  in  conjunction  with  that  revelation. 

Calvin's  formula  here  is.  The  Word  and  Spirit."    Only 

in  the  conjunction  of  the  two  can  an  effective  revelation  be 
la 


MICROCOPY    RESOIUTION    TEST   CHART 

ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    2> 


1.0 


I.I 


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1.25   I1IIII.4 


A  APPLIED  IIVMGE     Inc 

^ST  'bb}   tost    M.i  •-!    Stfeel 

r^S  Roc^esle',    Ne*    ''ork         '4609        USA 

^S  1,716)    •82  -  0300  -  Phone 

SBB  f,^i6}  288  -  "igag  -  ra« 


178 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


made  to  the  sin-darkened  mind  of  man.''*'    The  Word  sup- 
plies the  objective  factor;  the  Spirit  the  subjective  factor: 
and  only  in  the  union  of  the  objective  and  subjective  factors 
is  the  result  accomplished.     The  whole  objective  revelation 
of  God  lies,  thus,  in  the  Word.     But  the  whole  subjective 
capacitating  for  the  reception  of  this  revelation  lies  in  the 
will  of  the  Spirit.    Either,  by  itself,  is  wholly  ineffective  to 
the  result  aimed  at — the  production  of  knowledge  in  the 
human  mind.     But  when  they  unite,  knowledge  is  not  only 
rendered  possible  to  man :  it  is  rendered  certain.  And  there- 
fore  it   is   that   Calvin   represents   the  provision    for   the 
knowledge  of  God  both  in  the  objective  revelation  in  the 
Word  and  in  the  subjective  testimony  of  the  Spirit  as  des- 
tined by  God  not  for  men  at  large,  but  specifically  for  His 
people.  His  elect,  those  "to  whom  He  determined  to  make 
His  instructions  effectual"  (I.  vi.  3).     The  Calvinism  of 
Calvin's  doctrine  of  religious  knowledge  comes  to  clear 
mani testation  here ;  and  that  not  merely  because  of  its  impli- 
cation of  the  doctrine  of  election,  but  also  because  of  its 
implication  of  Calvin's  specific  doctrine  of  the  means  of 
grace.    Already  in  his  doctrine  of  religious  knowledge,  we 
find  Calvin  teaching  that  God  is  known  not  by  those  who 
choose  to  know  Him,  but  by  those  by  whom  He  chooses  to 
be  known :   and  this  simply  because  the  knowledge  cf  God 
is  God-given,  and  is  therefore  given  to  whom  He  will.    Men 
do  not  wring  the  knowledge  of  God  from  a  Deity  reluctant 
to  be  known :    God  imparts  the  knowledge  of  Himself  to 
men  reluctant  to  know  Him:    and  therefore  none  know 
Him  save  those  to  whom  He  efficaciously  imparts,  by  His 
Word  and  Spirit,  the  knowledge  of  Himself.     "By  His 
Word  and  Spirit", — therein  is  expressed  already  the  funda- 
mental formula  of  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the  "means  of 
grace".    In  that  doctrine  the  Spirit  is  not,  with  the  Luth- 


c.\i.\  ;n  s  DocTkiNii  or  the  knowledge  of  god     179 

.  rans,  conceived  as  in  the  Word,  conveyed  and  applied 
wherever  the  Word  goes :  nor  is  the  Word,  with  the  mystics, 
conceived  as  in  the  Spirit  always  essentially  present  where- 
ever  He  is  present  in  His  power  as  a  Spirit  of  revelation 
and  truth.  The  two  are  severally  contemplated,  as  separable 
factors  in  the  one  work  of  God  in  producing  the  knowledge 
of  Himself,  which  is  eternal  life,  in  the  souls  of  His  people; 
separable  factors  which  must  both,  however,  be  present 
if  this  knowledge  of  God  is  to  be  produced.  For  it  is 
the  function  of  the  Word  to  set  before  the  soul  the  object 
to  be  believed ;  and  it  is  the  function  of  the  Spirit  to  quicken 
in  the  soul  belief  in  this  object :  and  neither  performs  the 
work  of  the  other  or  its  own  work  apart  from  the  other. 
It  still  remains,  however,  to  inquire  precisely  how  Calvin 
conceived  the  Spirit  to  operate  in  bringing  the  soul  to  a 
hearty  faith  in  the  Word  as  a  revelation  from  God.  Are 
we  to  understand  him  as  teaching  that  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
His  almighty  y-ower  creates,  in  the  souls  of  those  whom  G<^^ 
has  set  upon  to  bring  to  a  knowledge  of  Him,  an  entirely 
ungrounded  faith  in  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures  and  the 
truth  of  their  contents,  so  that  the  soul  embraces  them  and 
their  contents  with  firm  confidence  as  a  revelation  from  God 
wholly  apart  from  and  in  the  absence  of  all  indicia  of  their 
divinity  or  of  the  truth  of  their  contents?  So  it  has  come 
to  be  very  widely  believed ;  and  indeed  it  may  even  be  said 
that  it  has  become  the  prevalent  representation  that  Calvin 
taught  that  believers  have  within  themselves  a  witness  of  the 
Spirit  by  which  they  are  assured  of  the  divinity  of  Scripture 
and  the  truth  of  its  contents  quite  apart  from  all  other  evi- 
dence. The  very  term,  "the  testimony  of  the  Spirit",  is 
adduced  in  support  of  this  representation,  as  settin^'  a  divine 
witness  to  the  divinity  of  Scripture  over  against  other 
sources  of  evidence,  and  of  course  superseding  them:   and 


I  So 


BENJAMIN    B.    VVARriELD 


appeal  is  made  along  with  this  to  Calvin's  strong  assertions 
of  the  uselessness  and  even  folly  of  plying  men  with  "the 
proofs"  of  the  divine  origin  of  Scripture,  seeing  that,  it  is 
said,  in  the  absence  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  such 
"proofs"  must  needs  be  ineffective,  and  in  the  presence  of 
that  effective  testimony  they  cannot  but  be  adjudged  un- 
necessary. What  can  he  mean,  then,  it  is  asked,  but  that  the 
testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  sufficient  to  assure  us  of  the 
divinity  of  Scripture  apart  from  all  indicia,  and  does  its 
work  entirely  independently  of  them? 

The  sufficient  answer  to  this  question  is  that  he  can 
mean — and  in  point  of  fact  does  mean — that  the  indicia  are 
wholly  insufficient  to  assure  us  of  the  divinity  of  Scripture 
apart  from  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit ;  and  effect  no  result 
independently  of  it.  This  is  quite  a  different  proposition 
and  gives  rise  to  quite  a  different  series  of  corollaries. 
Calvin's  dealing  with  the  indicia  of  the  divinity  of  Scripture 
has  already  attracted  our  attention  in  one  of  its  aspects,  and 
it  is  quite  worthy  of  renewed  scrutiny.  We  have  seen  that 
he  devotes  a  whole  chapter  to  their  exposition  (ch.  viii)  and 
strongly  asserts  their  objective  conclusiveness  to  the  fact  of 
the  divine  origin  of  Scripture  (I.  vii.  4).  Nor  does  he 
doubt  their  usefulness  whether  to  the  believer  or  the  unbe- 
liever. The  fulness  and  force  of  his  exposition  of  them  is 
the  index  to  his  sense  of  their  value  to  the  believer :  for  he 
adduces  them  distinctly  as  confirmations  of  believers  in 
their  faith  in  the  Scriptures  (I.  viii.  i,  13),  and  betrays  in 
every  line  of  their  treatment  the  high  significance  he  at- 
taches to  them  as  such.  And  he  explicitly  declares  that  they 
not  only  maintain  in  the  minds  of  the  pious  the  native 
dignity  and  authority  of  Scripture,  but  completely  vindicate 
it  against  all  the  subtleties  of  calumniators  (I.  viii.  13). 
No  man  of  sound  mind  can  fail  to  confess  on  their  basis 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     i8i 

that  it  is  God  who  speaks  in  Scripture  and  its  doctrine  is 
divine   (I.  vii.  4).     It  is  a  complete  misapprehension  of 
Calvin's  meaning,  then,  when  it  is  suggested  that  he  repre- 
sents the  indicia  of  the  divinity  of  Scripture  as  inconclusive 
or  even  as  ineffective."    Their  conclusiveness  could  not  be 
asserted  with  more  energy  than  he  asserts  it:    nor  indeed 
could  their  effectiveness — their  efToctiveness  in  extorting 
from  the  unbeliever  the  confession  of  the  divinity  of  Script- 
ure and  ill  rendering  him  without  excuse  in  refusing  the 
homage  of  his  mind  and  heart  to  it — in  a  word,  will  he,  nill 
he,  convincing  his  intellect  of  its  divinity ;  their  effectiveness 
also  in  confirming  the  believer  in  his  faith  and  maintain- 
ing  his   confidence   intact.      This   prevalent   misapprehen- 
sion of  Calvin's  meaning  is  due  to  neglect  to  observe  the 
precise  thing  for  which  he  affirms  the  indicia  to  be  ineffec- 
tive and  the  precise  reason  he  assigns  for  this  ineffective- 
ness.   There  is  only  one  thing  which  he  says  they  cannot  do : 
that  is  to  produce  "sound  faith"  (I.  vii.  4),  "firm  faith" 
(I.  viii.   13), — that  assurance  which  is  essential  to  "true 
piety"   (I.  vii.  4).     And  their  failure  to  produce  "sound 
faith"  is  due  solely  to  the  subjective  condition  of  man.  which 
is  such  that  a  creative  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the 
soul  is  requisite  before  he  can  exercise  "sound  faith"  (I.  vi. 
4;  viii.  I,  13).     It  is  the  attempt  to  produce  this  "sound 
faith"  in  the  heart  of  man,  not  renewed  for  believing  by 
the  creative  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  Calvin 
pronounces  preposterous  and  foolish.     "It  is  acting  a  pre- 
posterous part",  he  says,  "to  endeavor  to  produce  sound 
faith  in  the  Scriptures  by  disputations" :  objections  may  be 
silenced  by  such  disputations,  "but  this  will  not  fix  in  men's 
hearts  that  assurance  which  is  essential  to  true  piety";  for 
religion  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  opinion,  but  a  fundamen- 
tal change  of  attitude  towards  God  (I.  vii.  4).    It  betrays. 


i8j 


BENIAMIX    n.    WAUFIKLD 


therefore,  great  folly  to  wish  to  demonstrate  to  infidels 
that  the  Scriptures  are  the  Word  of  God.  he  repeats  in 
another  i)lace.  ohviously  with  no  other  meaning,  "since 
this  cannot  lie  known  without  faith",  that  is.  as  the  context 
shows,  witliout  the  internal  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
(I.  viii.  13  jf/  fill.). 

That  Calvin  sliouM  thus  teach  that  the  itidicia  are  incap- 
able of  producinp-  "firm  faith"  in  the  human  heart,  disabled 
by  sin,  is  a  matter  of  course:  and  therefore  it  is  a  matter 
of  course  that  he  should  teach  that  the  indicia  are  inefifective 
for  the  production  of  "sound  faith"'  apart  from  the  internal 
operation  of  the  Spirit  correcting  the  sin-bred  disabilites  of 
man.  that  is  to  say.  apart  from  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit. 
But  what  about  the  indicia  in  conjunction  with  the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit?  It  would  seem  to  be  evident  that,  on  Calvin's 
ground,  they  would  have  their  full  part  to  play  here,  and 
that  we  must  say  that,  when  the  soul  is  renewed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  a  sense  for  the  divinity  of  Scripture,  it  is  through 
the  indicia  of  that  divinity  that  it  is  brought  into  its  proper 
confidence  in  the  divinity  of  Scripture.  In  treating  of  the 
indicia.  Calvin  does  not,  however,  declare  this  in  so  many 
words.  He  sometimes  even  appears  to  speak  of  them  rather 
as  if  they  lay  side  by  side  with  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit 
than  acted  along  with  it  as  co-factors  in  the  production  of 
the  sunreme  effect.  He  speaks  of  their  inefi^ectiveness  in 
producing  sound  faith  in  the  unbeliever :  and  of  their  value 
as  corroboratives  to  the  believer:  and  his  language  would 
sometimes  seem  to  suggest  that  therefore  it  were  just  as  well 
not  to  employ  them  until  after  faith  had  formed  itself  under 
the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  (I.  viii.  1,13).  Of  their  part  in 
forming  faith  under  the  operation  of  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  he  does  not  appear  explicitly  to  speak.^** 

Nevertheless,  there  are  not  lacking  convincing  hints  that 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     183 


there  was  lying  in  his  mind  all  the  time  the  implicit  under- 
standing that  it  is  through  these  indicia  of  the  divinity  of 
Scripture  that  the  soul,  under  the  operation  of  the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit,  reaches  its  sound  faith  in  Scripture,  and  that 
he  has  been  withheld  from  more  explicitly  stating  this  only 
by  the  warmth  of  his  zeal  for  the  necessity  of  the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit  which  has  led  him  to  a  constant  contrasting  of 
tliis  divine  with  those  human  "testimonies".  Thus  we  find 
him  repeatedly  affirming  that  these  indicia  will  produce  no 
fruit  until  they  be  confirmed  by  the  internal  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  (I.  vii.  4,  5;  viii.  i,  13).  "Our  reverence  may  be 
conciliated  by  the  internal  majesty  of  Scripture,  but  it  never 
seriously  affects  us,  till  it  is  confirmed  by  the  Spirit  in  our 
hearts"  (I.  vii.  5).  "Without  this  certainty,  in  vain  will  the 
authority  of  Scripture  be  either  defended  by  arguments  or 
established  by  the  consent  of  the  Church,  or  of  any  other 
supports:  since  without  the  foundation  be  laid,  it  remains 
in  perpetual  suspense"  (I.  viii.  i).  The  indicia  "are  alone 
not  sufficient  to  produce  firm  faith  in  the  Scriptures,  /;"//  the 
heavenly  Father,  discovering  His  own  power  therein,  places 
its  authority  above  all  controversy"  (I.  viii.  13).  It  is, 
however,  in  his  general  teaching  as  to  the  formation  of 
sound  faith  in  the  divinity  of  Scripture  that  we  find  the 
surest  indication  that  he  thought  of  the  indicia  as  co- 
working  with  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  this  result. 
This  is  already  given,  indeed,  in  his  strenuous  insistence 
that  the  work  of  the  Spirit  is  not  of  the  nature  of  a  revela- 
tion, but  of  a  confirmation  of  the  revelation  deposited  in  the 
Scriptures,  especially  when  this  is  taken  in  connection  with 
his  teaching  that  Scripture  is  self-authenticating.  What  the 
Spirit  of  God  imparts  to  us,  he  says,  is  a  sense  of  divinity : 
such  a  sense  discovers  divinity  only  where  divinity  is  and 
only  by  a  perception  of  it, — a  perception  which  of  course 


i84 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


rests  on  its  proper  indicia.  It  is  because  Scripture  "exhibits 
the  plainest  evidence  that  it  is  God  who  speaks  in  it"  that  the 
newly  awakened  sense  of  divinity  quickened  in  the  soul, 
recognizes  it  as  divine  (I.  vii.  4).  The  senses  do  not  dis- 
tinguish light  from  darkness,  white  from  black,  sweet  from 
bitter, — to  use  Calvin's  own  illustration  (I.  vii.  2), — save 
by  the  mediation  of  those  indicia  of  light  and  darkness, 
whiteness  and  blackness,  sweetness  and  bitterness,  by  wliich 
these  qualities  manifest  themselves  to  the  natural  senses: 
and  by  parity  of  reasoning  we  must  accredit  Calvin  as 
thinking  of  the  newly  implanted  spiritual  sense  discerning 
the  divinity  of  Scripture  only  through  the  mediation  of  the 
indicia  of  divinity  manifested  in  Scripture.  To  taste  and 
see  that  the  Scriptures  are  divine  is  to  recognize  a  divinity 
actually  present  in  Scripture ;  and  of  course  recognition  im- 
plies perception  of  indicia,  not  attribution  of  a  divinity  not 
recognized  as  inherent.  Meanwhile  it  must  be  admitted  that 
Calvin  has  not  at  this  point  developed  this  side  of  his  subject 
with  the  fulness  which  might  be  wished,  but  has  left  it  to  the 
general  implications  of  the  argument 

OBJECT    TESTIFIED   TO. 

Closely  connected  with  the  question  of  the  mode  in  which 
Calvin  conceived  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  be  delivered, 
is  the  further  question  of  the  matters  for  which  he  con- 
ceived that  testimony  to  be  available.  On  the  face  of  it, 
it  would  seem  that  he  conceived  it  directly  available  solely 
for  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures  and  therefore  for  the 
revelatory  character  of  their  contents.  So  he  seems  to  imply 
throughout  the  discussion,  and,  indeed,  to  assert  repeatedly. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  a  widespread  impression  abroad  that 
he  appealed  to  it  to  determine  the  canon  of  Scripture  too,'* 
and  indeed  also  to  establish  the  integrity  of  its  text.     This 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    i8: 


impression  is  generally,  though  not  always,  connected  with 
the  view  that  Calvin  conceived  the  mode  of  delivery  of  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  be  the  creation  in  the  soul  of  a 
blind  faith,  unmotivecl  by  reasons  and  without  rooting  in 
grounds ;  and  it  has  been  much  exploited  of  late  years  in  the 
interests  of  a  so-called  "free"  attitude  towards  Scripture, 
which  announces  itself  as  following  Calvin  when  it  refuses 
to  acknowledge  as  authoritative  Scripture  any  portion  of  or 
element  in  the  traditionally  transmitted  Scriptures  which 
does  not  spontaneously  commend  itself  to  the  immediate 
religious  judgment  as  divine.  Undoubtedly  this  is  to  re- 
verse the  attitude  of  Calvin  towards  the  traditionally  trans- 
mitted Scriptures,  and  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  twc'  such 
diametrically  contradictory  attitudes  towards  the  Scriptures 
can  be  outgrowths  of  the  same  principial  root.  In  point  of 
fact,  moreover,  as  we  have  already  seen,  not  only  does 
Calvin  not  conceive  the  mode  of  the  delivery  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  to  be  by  the  creation  of  a  blind  and 
unmotived  faith,  but,  to  come  at  once  to  the  matter  more 
particularly  in  hand,  he  does  not  depend  on  the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit  for  the  determination  of  canonicity  or  for  the 
establishment  of  the  integrity  of  the  text  of  Scripture.  So 
far  from  discarding  the  via  rationalis  here,  he  determines 
the  limits  of  the  canon  and  establishes  the  integrity  of  the 
transmission  of  Scripture  distinctly  on  scientific,  that  is  to 
say,  historico-critical  grounds.  In  no  case  of  his  frequent 
discussion  of  such  subjects  does  he  appeal  to  the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit  and  set  aside  the  employment  of  rational  and 
historical  argumentation  as  invalid  or  inconclusive;  always, 
on  the  contrary,  he  adduces  the  evidence  of  valid  tradition 
and  apostolicity  of  contents  as  conclusive  of  the  fact.  It  is 
hard  to  believe  that  such  a  consequent  mind  could  have  lived 


1 86 


BENJAMIN    D.    WARFIELD 


uncoiiscioiisly  in  such  an  inconsistent  attitude  towards  a 
question  so  vital  to  him  and  his  cause."" 

So  far  as  support  for  tlie  impression  tliat  Calvin  looked 
to  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  determine  for  him  the 
canon  of  Scripture  and  to  assure  him  of  its  integrity  is 
derived  from  his  writings,  it  rests  on  a  manifest  misappre- 
hetision  of  a  single  ])assage  in  the  Institutes,  and  what  seems 
to  he  a  niisassignnient  to  him  of  a  passage  in  the  old  French 
Confession  of  Faith. 

The  passage  in  the  Institutes  is  a  ixjrtion  of  the  para- 
graphs which  are  devoted  to  repelling  the  Romish  conten- 
tion that  "  the  Scriptures  have  only  so  much  weight  as  is 
conceded  to  them  hy  the  suffrages  of  the  Church ;  as  though 
the  eternal  and  inviolable  truth  of  God  depended  on  the 
arbitrary  will  of  men"  (I.  vii.  i ).  "For  thus",  Calvin  says — 
and  this  is  the  passage  which  is  appealed  to — "For  thus, 
dealing  witli  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  mere  laughing  stock 
(ludibriutii),  they  ask.  Who  shall  give  us  confidence  that 
these  [Scriptures]  have  come  from  God, — who  assure  us 
lat  they  have  reached  our  time  safe  and  intact, — who  per- 
suade us  that  one  book  should  be  received  reverently,  an- 
other expunged  from  the  number  (tiumero) — if  the  Church 
should  not  prescribe  a  certain  rule  for  all  these  things?  It 
depends,  therefore,  they  say,  on  the  Church,  both  what  rev- 
erence is  due  to  Scripture,  and  what  books  should  be  in- 
scribed (ccusctidi  sint)  in  its  catalogue  (in  ejus  catalogo)" 
(I.  vii.  i).  This  passage  certainly  shows  that  the  Romish 
controversialists  in  endeavoring  to  prove  that  the  authority 
of  Scripture  is  dependent  on  the  Church's  suffrage,  argued 
that  it  is  only  by  the  Church  that  we  can  be  assured  even  of 
the  contents  of  Scripture  and  of  its  integrity, — that  its  very 
canon  and  text  rest  on  the  Church's  determination.  But 
how  can  it  be  inferred  that  Calvin's  response  to  this  argu- 


Calvin's  doctrine  or  the  knowledge  of  god     187 


merit  would  take  the  form :  No.  of  these  things  we  can  be 
assured  by  the  immediate  testimony  of  the  Spirit?  In  point 
of  fact,  he  says  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  the  inference  does 
not  he  in  the  argument.  What  he  says  is  that  the  Romish 
method  of  arguing  is  as  absurd  as  it  is  blasphemous,  a 
mere  cavil  (I.  vii.  2),  as  well  as  derogatory  to  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  Holy  Spirit,  he  says,  assures  us  that  in  the 
Scriptures  God  speaks  to  us.  To  bid  us  pause  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  only  the  Church  wlio  can  assure  us  that  this  or 
that  book  belongs  to  the  body  of  the  Scriptures,  that  the 
text  has  been  preserved  to  us  intact  and  the  like,  is  to  inter- 
pose frivolous  objections,  and  can  have  no  other  end  than  to 
glorify  the  Cliurch  at  the  expense  of  souls.  Accordingly, 
he  remarks  that  these  objectors  are  witliout  concern  what 
logical  difficulties  they  may  cast  themselves  into :  they  wish 
only  to  prevent  men  taking  their  comfort  out  of  the  direct 
assurance  by  the  Spirit  of  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures. 
He  repudiates,  in  a  word,  the  entire  Romish  argument :  but 
we  can  scarcely  inter  from  this,  that  his  response  to  it  would 
be  that  the  immediate  witness  of  the  Spirit  provides  us  with 
direct  answers  to  their  carping  questions.  It  is  at  least 
equally  likely  from  the  mere  fact  that  he  speaks  of  these 
objections  as  cavils  (I.  vii.  2)  and  girds  at  the  logic  of  the 
Romish  controversialists  as  absurd,  that  his  response  would 
be  that  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  for  which  he  was  con- 
tending had  no  direct  concernment  with  questions  of  canon 
and  text. 

The  passage  in  the  Confession  of  La  Rochelle,  on  the 
other  hand,  does  certainly  attribute  the  discrimination  of 
the  canonical  books  in  some  sense — in  what  sense  may  admit 
of  debate — to  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit.  In  the  third 
article  of  this  Confession  there  is  given  a  list  of  the  canon- 
ical books.'^     The  fourth  article,  then,  runs  as  follows: 


I8X 


DENJAMIX    B.    WAKKIELD 


"We  recotr'iize  these  books  to  be  canonical  and  the  very 
certain  rule  of  our  faith,  not  so  much  by  the  common  accord 
and  consent  of  the  Church,  as  by  the  inward  witness  and 
persuasion  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  makes  us  distinguish 
them  from  the  other  ecclesiastical  books,  upon  which, 
though  they  may  be  useful,  no  article  of  faith  can  be 
founded."  Tiiis  article,  however,  was  not  the  composition 
of  Calvin,  but  was  among  tliosc  added  by  the  Synod  of 
Paris  to  the  draft  submitted  by  Calvin."  Calvin's  own 
article  "On  the  Books  of  Holy  Scripture",  which  was  ex- 
panded by  the  Synod  into  several,  reads  only :  "This  doc- 
trine does  not  derive  its  authority  from  men,  nor  from 
angels,  but  from  God  alone;  we  believe,  too  (seeing  that  it 
is  a  thing  surpassing  all  human  sense  to  discern  that  it  is 
God  who  speaks),  that  He  Himself  gives  the  certitude  of  it 
to  His  elect,  and  seals  it  in  their  hearts  by  His  Spirit."^" 
In  this  fine  statement  we  find  the  very  essence  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Institutes  on  this  subject;  the  ideas  and  even  the 
phraseology  of  which  are  reproduced. 

We  may  learn,  therefore,  at  most,  from  the  Confession 
of  La  Rochelle,  not  that  Calvin,  but  that  some  of  his  imme- 
diate followers  attributed  in  some  sense  the  discrimination 
of  the  canonical  books  to  the  witness  of  the  Spirit.  Other 
evidences  of  this  fact  are  not  lacking.  The  Belgian  Con- 
fession, for  example,  much  like  that  of  La  Rochelle.  declares 
of  the  Scriptural  books,  just  enumerated  (Art.  5)  :  "We 
receive  all  these  books  alone,  as  holy  and  canonical,  for  the 
regulation,  foundation  and  establishment  of  our  faith, 
and  we  fully  believe  all  that  they  contain,  not  so  much 
because  the  Church  receives  and  approves  them,  but  princi- 
pally because  the  Spirit  gives  witness  to  them  in  our  hearts 
that  they  arc  from  God,  and  also  because  they  are  approved 
by  themselves;  for  tlie  verj'  blind  can  perceive  that  the 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD       189 

things  come  to  pass  which  they  predict."  Perliaps,  how- 
ever, we  may  find  a  more  instructive  instance  still  in  the 
words  of  one  of  the  Protestant  disputants  in  a  conference 
held  at  Paris  in  1566  between  two  Protestant  ministers  and 
two  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne."*  To  the  inquiry,  How  do 
you  know  that  some  Iwoks  are  canonical  and  others  apocry- 
phal, the  Protestant  disputant  (M.  Lespine)  answers:  "By 
the  Spirit  of  God  which  is  a  Spirit  of  discrimination,  by 
whom  all  those  to  whom  He  is  communicated  are  illumi- 
nated, so  as  to  be  made  capable  of  judging  and  discerning 
spiritual  things  and  of  recognizing  (cognoistre)  and  apjjre- 
hending  the  truth  (when  it  is  proposed  to  them),  by  the 
witness  and  assurance  which  He  gives  to  them  in  their 
hearts.  And  as  we  discriminate  light  and  darkness  by  the 
faculty  of  sight  which  is  in  the  eye ;  so,  we  can  easily  sep- 
arate and  recognize  (recognoistre)  truth  from  falsehood, 
and  from  all  things  in  general  which  can  be  false,  absurd, 
doubtful  or  indiflferent,  when  we  are  invested  with  the  Spirit 
of  God  and  guided  by  the  light  which  He  lights  in  our 
hearts."  M.  Lespine  had  evidently  read  his  Calvin;  though 
there  is  a  certain  lack  of  crisp  exactness  in  his  language 
which  may  raise  doubt  whether  he  has  necessarily  repro- 
duced him  with  precision.  Clearly  his  idea  is  that  the  Spirit 
of  God  in  His  creative  operation  on  the  hearts  of  Christ's 
fieople  has  implanted  in  them — or  quickened  in  them — a 
spiritual  sense,  which  recognizes  the  stamp  of  divinity  upon 
the  books  which  God  has  given  to  the  Church,  and  so  sep- 
arates them  out  from  all  others  anf.  thus  constitutes  the 
canon.  This  is  to  attribute  the  discrimination  of  the  canon- 
ical books  to  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  not  directly  but 
indirectly,  namely,  through  the  intermediation  of  the  deter- 
mination of  the  books  which  are  of  divine  origin,  which, 
then,   being  gathered   togetiier,   constitute   the   canon,    or 


190 


BENJAMIN    B.    WAUFIELD 


divinely  given  rule  of  our  faith  and  life.  This  conception 
of  the  movement  of  the  mind  in  this  matter  became  very 
common,  and  was  given  very  clear  expression,  for  example, 
by  Jurieu,*""''  in  a  context  which  bears  as  evident  marks  of 
reminiscences  of  Calvin  as  do  M.  Lcspine's  remarks.  "That 
grace  which  produces  faith  in  a  soul",  says  he,  "does  not 
begin  by  persuading  it  that  a  given  book  is  canonical.  This 
persuasion  comes  only  afterwards  and  as  a  consequence.  It 
gives  to  the  consciousness  a  taste  for  the  truth :  it  applies 
this  truth  to  the  mind  and  heart :  it  proceeds  from  this  sub- 
sequently that  the  believer  believes  that  a  given  book  is 
canonical,  because  the  truths  which  'find'  him  are  found  in 
it.  In  a  word,  we  do  not  believe  that  which  is  contained  in 
a  book  to  be  divine  because  this  book  is  canonical.  But  we 
believe  that  a  given  book  is  canonical  because  we  have  per- 
ceived that  what  it  contains  is  divine.  And  we  have  per- 
ceived this  as  we  perceive  the  light  when  we  look  on  the  fire, 
sweetness  and  bitterness  when  we  eat."  Whether  we  are  to 
attribute  this  movement  of  thought,  however,  to  Calvin,  is 
another  question.""  There  is  no  hint  of  it  in  his  writings. 
It  is  not  even  obvious  that  this  precise  movement  of 
thought  is  the  conception  which  lay  in  the  mind  of  the 
authors  of  the  additional  articles  in  the  Confession  of  La 
Rocliclle  and  of  the  similar  statement  in  the  Belgian  Con- 
fession. The  interpretation  of  these  articles  is  particularly 
interesting,  as  they  both  undoubtedly  came  under  the  eye 
of  Calvin  and  their  doctrine  was  never  disavowed  by  him. 
It  is  not,  however,  altogether  easy,  because  of  a  certain 
ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the  term  "canonical".  It  is  on 
account  of  the  ambiguity  which  attends  the  use  of  this  term 
that  in  speaking  of  their  teaching  we  have  guardedly  said 
that  they  appear  to  suspend  th<;  canonicity  of  the  Scriptural 
books  in  some  sense  directly  on  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit. 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE   OF   THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD       I9I 


This  ambig-iity  may  be  brought  sharply  before  us  by  placing 
in  juxtaposition  two  sentences  from  Quenstedt  in  which  the 
term  '"canonical"  is  employed,  obviously,  in  two  differing 
senses.  "We  deny",  says  he,  "that  the  catalogue  of  canon- 
ical books  is  an  article  of  faith,  superadded  to  the  others 
[articles  of  faith]  contained  in  Scripture.  Many  have  faith 
and  may  attain  salvation  who  do  not  hold  the  number  of 
canonical  books.  If  the  word  'canon'  be  understood  of  the 
number  of  the  books,  we  concede  that  such  a  catalogue  is 
not  contained  in  Scripture."  "These  are  two  different  ques- 
tions", says  he  again,  "whether  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  is 
canonical,  and  whether  it  was  written  by  Matthew.  The 
former  belongs  to  saving  faith;  the  latter  to  historical 
knowledge.  For  if  the  Gospel  which  has  come  down  to  us 
under  the  name  of  Matthew  had  bee:?  written  by  Philip  or 
Bartiiolomew,  it  would  make  no  difference  to  saving  faith." 
In  the  former  extract  the  question  of  crinonicity  is  removed 
from  the  category  of  articles  of  faith ;  in  the  latter  it  is  made 
an  integral  element  of  saving  faith.  The  contradiction  is 
glaring — unless  there  be  an  undistributed  middle.  And  this 
is  what  there  really  is.  In  the  former  passage,  where 
Quenstedt  is  engaged  in  repelling  the  contention  that  there 
are  articles  of  faith  that  must  be  accepted  by  all,  which  are 
not  contained  in  Scripture — in  defending,  in  a  word,  the 
Protestant  doctrine  of  the  sufficiency  or  perfection  of  Script- 
ure— he  uses  the  terms  'canon',  'canonical'  in  the  purely 
technical  sense  of  the  extent  of  Scripture.  In  the  latter 
passage,  where  he  is  insisting  that  the  authority  of  Scripture 
as  the  Word  of  God  hangs  on  its  divine,  not  on  its  human, 
author,  he  uses  the  term  'canonical'  in  the  sense  of  "divinely 
given".  The  term  "canonical"  was  current,  then,  in  the 
two  senses  of  'belonging  to  the  list  of  authoritative  Script- 
ures', 'entering  into  the  body  of  the  Scriptures',  and  'God- 


1()J 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARKIELD 


given',  'divine'.  In  whicli  of  these  two  senses  is  it  used  in 
the  Gallican  and  Belgian  Confessions?  If  in  the  former, 
then  tliese  Confessions  teach  that  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  is  available  directly  for  the  determination  of  the 
canon:  if  in  the  latter,  then  they  teach  no  such  thing,  but 
only  that  it  is  on  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  that  we  are 
assured  of  the  divine  origin  and  character  of  these  books. 
That  the  Gallican  Confession  employs  the  tenn  in  the 
latter  of  these  senses,  seems  at  least  possible  when  once 
attention  is  called  to  it,  although  regard  for  the  last  clause 
of  the  statement :  "who  makes  us  distinguish  them  from  the 
other  ecclesiastical  books",  etc.,  prevents  the  representation 
of  this  interpretation  as  certain.  Its  declaration,  succeeding 
the  catalogue  of  the  books  given  in  the  third  section,  is 
obviously  intended  to  affirm  something  that  is  true  of  them 
already  as  a  definite  body  of  books  before  the  mind.  "We 
recognize  these  books",  it  says,  "to  be  canonical  and  the  very 
certain  rule  of  our  faith".  That  is  to  say,  to  this  body  of 
books  we  ascribe  the  quality  of  canonicity  and  recognize 
their  regulative  character.  What  would  seem,  then,  to  be  in 
question  is  a  quality  belonging  to  a  list  of  books  already 
determined  and  in  the  mind  of  the  framer  of  the  statement 
as  a  whole.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  Belgian  Confes- 
sion. It,  too,  has  already  given  a  list  of  the  canonical  books, 
and  now  proceeds  to  affirm  something  that  is  true  of  "all  of 
these  books  and  them  only".  The  thing  affirmed  is  that  they 
are  "holy  and  canonical",  where  the  collocation  suggests 
that  "canonical"  expresses  a  quality  which  ranges  with 
"holy".  We  cannot  help  suspecting,  then,  that  these  early 
confessions  use  the  term  "canonical"  not  quantitatively  but 
qualitatively,  not  extensively  but  intensively;  and  in  that 
sense  it  is  the  equivalent  of  "divine".®^  Even  the  inference 
back  from  them  to  Calvin  that  he  may  have  supposed  that 


CALVIN  S  JOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      I93 

the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  available  to  determine  the 
canon  becomes  therefore  doubtful:  and  no  other  reason 
exists  why  we  should  attribute  this  view  to  him.  We  cannot 
affirm  that  the  movement  of  his  thought  was  never  from  the 
divinity  of  Scripture,  assured  to  us  by  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit,  to  the  determination  of  the  limits  of  the  canon :  but 
we  have  no  reason  to  ascribe  this  movement  of  thought  to 
him  except  that  it  was  adopted  by  some  of  his  successors. 

On  the  other  hand,  Calvin  constantly  speaks  as  if  the 
only  thing  which  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  assures  us  of 
in  the  case  of  the  Scriptures  is  the  divinity  of  their  origin  and 
contents :  and  he  always  treats  Scripture  when  so  speaking 
of  it  as  a  definite  entity,  held  before  his  mind  as  a  whole.«* 
In  these  circumstances  his  own  practice  in  dealing  with  the 
question  of  canonicity  and  text,  makes  it  sufficiently  clear 
that  he  held  their  settlement  to  depend  on  scientific  investi- 
gation, and  appealed  to  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  only  to 
accredit  the  divine  origin  of  the  concrete  volume  thus  put 
into  his  hands.  The  movement  of  his  thought  was  therefore 
along  this  course:  first,  the  ascertainment,  on  scientific 
grounds,  of  the  body  of  books  handed  down  from  the 
Apostles  as  the  rule  of  faith  and  practice;  secondly,  the 
vindication,  on  the  same  class  of  grounds,  of  the  integrity 
of  their  transmission;  thirdly,  the  accrediting  of  them  as 
divine  on  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  not  involved  in 
this  that  he  is  to  be  considered  to  have  supposed  that  a  man 
must  be  a  scholar  before  he  can  be  a  Christian.  He  supposed 
we  become  Christians  not  by  scholarship  but  by  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  in  the  heart,  and  he  had  no  inclination 
to  demand  scholarship  as  the  basis  of  our  Christianity.  It 
is  only  involved  in  the  position  we  ascribe  to  him  that  he 
must  be  credited  with  recognizing  that  questions  of  scholar- 
ship are  for  scholars  and  questions  of  religion  only  for 


194 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


Christians  as  such.     He  would  have  said— he  does  say- 
that  he  in  whose  heart  the  Spirit  bears  His  testimony  will 
recognize  the  Scriptures  as  divine  whenever  presented  to  his 
contemplation,  will  depend  on  them  with  sound  trust  and 
will  embrace  with  true  faith  all  that  they  propound  to  him. 
He  would  doubtless  have  said  that  this  act  of  faith  logically 
implicates  the  determination  of  the  'canon'.     But  he  would 
also  have  said— he  does  in  effect  say— that  this  determina- 
tion of  the  canon  is  a  separable  act  and  is  to  be  prosecuted 
on  its  own  appropriate  grounds  of  scientific  evidence.     It 
involves  indeed  a  fundamental  misapprehension  of  Calvin's 
whole  attitude  to  attribute  to  him  the  view  that  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  determines  immediately  such  scientific 
questions  as  those  of  the  canon  and  text  of  Scripture.    The 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  was  to  him  emphatically  an  opera- 
tion of  the  Spirit  of  God  on  the  heart,  which  produced  dis- 
tinctively a  spiritual  effect :   it  was  directed  to  making  men 
Chr'stians,^''  not  to  making  them  theologians.     The  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  was,  in  effect,  in  his  view,  just  what  we 
in  modern  times  have  learned  to  call  "regeneration"  con- 
sidered in  its  noetic  effects.    That  "regeneration"  has  noetic 
effects  he  is  explicit  and  iterative  in  affirming :  but  that  these 
noetic  effects  of  "regeneration"  could  supersede  the  neces- 
sity (jf  scientific  investigation  in  questions  which  rest  for 
their  determination  on  matters  of  fact,— Calvin  would  be 
the  last  to  imagine.    He  who  recognized  that  the  conviction 
of  the  divinity  of  Scripture  wrought  by  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  rests  as  its  ground  on  the  indicia  of  the  divinity  of 
Scripture  spiritually  discerned  in  their  true  weight,  could 
not  imagine  that  the  determination  of  the  canon  of  Scripture 
or  the  establishment  of  its  text  could  be  wholly  separated 
from  their  proper  basis  in  evidence  and  grounded  solely  in 
a  blind  testimony  of  the  Spirit  alone :  which  indeed  in  that 


Calvin's  doctrine  ok  the  knowledge  of  god    195 

case  would  be  fundamentally  indistinguishable  from  that 
"revelation"  which  he  rebuked  the  Anabaptists  for  claiming 
to  be  the  recipients  of. 

THE   TESTIMONY   AND   THE    RELIGIOUS    LIFE. 

When  w  -learly  apprehend  the  essence  of  Calvm's  doc- 
trine of  the  t:-  .imony  of  the  Spirit  to  the  divinity  of  Script- 
ure to  be  the  noetic  effects  of  "regeneration"  we  shall  know 
what  estimate  to  place  upon  the  criticism  which  is  some- 
times passed  upon  him  that  he  has  insufficiently  correlated 
his  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  with  the  inner  re- 
ligious life  of  the  Christian,^"  has  given  too  separate  a  place 
to  the  Spirit's  witness  to  Scripture,  and  thus  has  overesti- 
mated the  formal  principle  of  Protestantism  in  comparison 
with  the  material  principle/'  with  the  effect  of  giving  a 
hard,  dry  and  legalistic  aspect  to  Christianity  as  expounded 
by  him.  With  Luther,  it  is  said,  everything  is  made  of 
justification  and  the  liberty  of  the  Christian  man  fills  the 
horizon  of  thought ;  and  this  is  because  his  mind  is  set  on  the 
"faith"  out  of  which  all  good  things  flow  and  by  which 
everything— Scripture  itself— is  dominated.  With  Calvin, 
on  the  other  hand,  with  his  primary  emphasis  on  the  author- 
ity of  Scripture,  accredited  to  us  by  a  distinct  act  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  the  watchword  becomes  obedience;  and  the 
horizon  of  thought  is  filled  with  a  sense  of  obligation  and 
legalistic  anxiety  as  to  conduct. 

How  Calvin  could  have  failed  to  correlate  sufficiently 
closely  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  with  the  inner  Christian 
life,  or  could  have  emphasized  the  formal  principle  of  Pro- 
testantism at  the  expense  of  the  material,  when  he  conceived 
of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  as  just  one  of  the  effects  of 
"regeneration",  it  is  difficult  to  see.  So  to  conceive  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  on  the  contrary  to  make  the  forma! 


icX) 


BENJAMIN    R.    WARFIELD 


principle  of  Protestantism  just  an  outgrowth  of  the  material. 
It  is  only  because  our  spirits  have  been  renewed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  that  we  see  with  convincing  clearness  the  indicia  of 
God  in  Scripture,  that  is,  have  the  Scriptures  sealed  to  us  by 
the  Spirit  as  divine.     It  is  quite  possible  that  Calvin  may 
have  particularly  emphasized  the  obligations  which  grow 
out  of  our  renewal  by  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  implantation 
in  us  of  the  Spirit  of  Adoption  whereby  we  become  the  sons 
of  God — obligations  to  comport  ourselves  as  the  sons  of 
Gel  and  to  govern  ourselves  by  the  law  of  God's  house  as 
given  us  in  His  Word :  while  Luther  may  have  emphasized 
more  the  liberty  of  the  Christian  man  who  is  emancipated 
from  the  law  as  a  condition  of  salvation  and  is  ushered  into 
the  freedom  of  life  which  belongs  to  the  children  of  God. 
And  it  is  quite  possible  that  in  this  difference  we  may  find 
a  fundamental  distinction  between  the  two  types  of  Protest- 
antism— Lutheran  and  Reformed — by  virtue  of  which  the 
Reformed  have  ahvavs  been  characterized  by  a  strong  eth- 
ical tendency — in  thought  and  in  practice.     But  it  is  mis- 
leading to  represent  this  as  due  to  an  insufficient  correlation 
on  Calvin's  part  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  the  divinity 
of  Scripture  with  the  inner  Christian  life.     It  would  be 
more  exact  to  say  that  Calvin  in  this  correlation  thinks 
especially  of  what   in  our  modern  nomenclature  we  call 
"regeneration",  while  the  mind  of  his  Lutheran  critics  is 
set  more  upon  justification  and  that  "faith"  which  is  con- 
nected with  justification.     With  Calvin,  at  all  events,  the 
recognition  of  the  Scripture:,  as  divine  and  the  hearty  adop- 
tion of  them  as  the  divine  ..ile  of  our  faith  and  life  is  just 
one  of  the  effects  of  the  gracious  operation  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  on  tlie  heart,  renewing  it  into  spiritual  life,  or,  what 
comes  to  the  same  thing,  one  of  the  gracious  activities  into 
which  the  newly  implanted  spiritual  life  effloresces. 


CALVIN  S   DOCTRINE   OK   THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD       I97 


Whether  we  should  say  also  that  it  was  with  him  the  first 
effect  of  the  creative  operation  of  the  Spirit  on  the  heart,  the 
first  act  of  the  newly  renewed  soul,  requires  some  discrimina- 
tion. If  we  mean  lojjically  first,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  we 
should  probably  answer  this  question  also  in  the  affirmative. 
Calvin  would  doubtless  have  said  that  it  is  in  the  Scriptures 
that  Christ  is  proposed  to  our  faith,  or,  to  put  it  more 
broadly,  that  Christ  is  the  very  substance  of  the  Sf)ecial  reve- 
lation documented  in  the  Scriptures,  and  that  the  laying 
hold  of  Christ  by  faith  presupposes  therefore  confidence  in 
the  revelation  the  substance  of  which  He  is, — which  is  as 
much  as  to  say  the  embracing  of  the  Scriptures  in  firm  faith 
as  a  revelation  from  God.  If  the  Word  is  the  vehicle 
through  which  the  knowledge  of  Christ  is  brought  to  the 
soul,  it  follows  of  itself  that  it  is  only  when  our  minds  are 
filled  with  a  solid  reverence  for  the  Word,  when  by  the 
light  of  the  Spirit  we  are  enabled  and  prevalently  led  to 
see  Christ  therein,  that  we  can  embrace  Christ  with  a  sound 
faith:  so  that  it  may  truly  be  said  that  no  man  can  have 
the  least  true  and  sound  knowledge  of  Christ  without  learn- 
ing from  Scripture  {cf.  I.  ix.  3;  I.  vi.  2).  In  this  sense 
Calvin  would  certainly  have  said  that  our  faith  in  Christ 
presupposes  faith  in  the  Scriptures,  rather  than  that  we 
believe  in  the  Scriptures  for  Christ's  sake.  But  if  our  minds 
are  set  on  chronological  sequences,  the  response  to  the  ques- 
tion which  is  raised  is  more  doubtful.  Faith  in  the  revela- 
tion the  substance  of  w-hich  is  Christ  and  faith  in  Christ  the 
substance  of  this  revelation  are  logical  implicates  which  in- 
volve one  another:  and  we  should  probably  be  nearest  to 
Calvin's  thought  if,  withovt  raising  questions  of  chronolog- 
ical succession,  we  should  recognize  them  as  arising  together 
in  the  soul.  The  real  difference  between  Calvin's  and  the 
ordinary  Lutheran  conception  at  this  point  lies  in  the  greater 


I9.S 


BENJAMIN"    I!.    WAKFIELD 


profundity  of  Calvin's  insight  and  tlie  greater  exactness  of 
his  analysis.  The  Lutheran  is  prone  to  begin  with  faith, 
which  is  naturally  conceived  at  its  apex,  as  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  our  Redeemer;  and  to  make  everything  else  flow 
from  this  faith  as  its  ultimate  root.  For  what  comes  liefore 
faith,  out  of  which  faith  itself  flows,  he  has  little  impulse 
accurately  to  inquire.  Calvin  penetrates  behind  faith  to  the 
creative  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  heart  and  the  new 
creature  which  resiuts  therefrom,  whose  act  faith  is ;  and  is 
therefore  compelled  by  an  impulse  derived  from  the  matter 
itself  to  consider  the  relations  in  which  the  several  activities 
of  this  new  creature  stand  to  one  another  and  to  analyse  the 
faith  itself  which  holds  the  primacy  among  them  (for  trust 
is  the  essence  of  religion,  ch.  ii),  into  its  several  movements. 
The  effect  of  this  is  that  "efficacious  grace"^ — what  we  call 
in  modern  speech  "regeneration" — takes  the  place  of  funda- 
mental principle  in  Calvin's  soteriology  and  he  becomes  pre- 
eminently the  theologian  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  point  of 
fact  it  is  from  him  accordingly  that  the  effective  study  of 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  takes  its  rise,  and  it  is  only  in 
the  channels  cut  by  him  and  at  the  hands  of  thinkers  taught 
by  him  that  the  theology  of  the  Holy  Spirit  has  been  richly 
developed.''^ 

It  is  his  profound  sense  of  the  supernatural  origin  of  all 
that  is  good  in  the  manifestations  of  human  life  which 
constitutes  the  characteristic  mark  of  Calvin's  thinking: 
and  it  is  this  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  and  determines  his 
doctrine  of  the  witness  of  tlie  Holy  Spirit.  He  did  not 
doubt  that  the  act  of  faith  by  which  the  child  of  God 
embraces  the  Scriptures  as  a  revelation  of  God  is  his  own 
act  and  the  expression  of  his  innermost  consciousness.  But 
neither  did  he  doubt  that  this  consciousness  is  itself  the 
expression  of  a  creative  act  of  the  Spirit  of  God.     And  it 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    199 

was  on  this  account  that  he  represented  to  himself  the  act 
of  faith  performed  as  resting  ultimately  on  "the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit".  Its  supernatural  origin  was  to  him  the  most 
certain  thing  about  it.  That  language  very  much  resem- 
bling his  own  might  be  employed  in  a  naturalistic  sense  was, 
no  doubt,  made  startlingly  plain  in  his  own  day  by  the  teach- 
ing of  Castellion.  Out  of  his  pantheising  rationalism  Cas- 
tellion  found  it  possible  to  speak  almost  in  Calvin's  words. 
"It  is  evident",  says  he,  "that  the  intention  and  secret  coun- 
sels of  God,  hidden  in  the  Scriptures,  are  revealed  only  to 
believers,  the  humble,  the  pious,  who  fear  God  and  have  the 
Spirit  of  God."  If  the  wicked  have  sometimes  spoken  like 
prophets,  they  have  nevertheless  not  really  understood  what 
they  said,  but  are  like  magpies  in  a  cage  going  through  the 
forms  of  speech  without  inner  apprehension  of  its  mean- 
ing.''^ But  Castellion  meant  by  this  nothing  more  than  that 
sympathy  is  requisite  to  understanding.  Since  his  day  mul- 
titudes more  have  employed  Calvin's  language  to  express 
little  more  than  this;  and  have  even  represented  Calvin's 
own  meaning  as  nothing  more  than  that  the  human  con- 
sciousness acquires  by  association  with  God  in  Christ  the 
power  of  discriminating  the  truth  of  God  from  falsehood. 
Nothing  could  more  fundamentally  subvert  Calvin's  whole 
teaching.  The  very  nerve  of  his  thought  is,  that  the  confi- 
dence of  the  Christian  in  the  divine  origin  and  authority 
of  Scripture  and  the  revelatory  nature  of  its  contents  is  of 
distinctively  supernatural  origin,  is  God-wrought.  The  tes- 
timony of  the  Spirit  may  be  delivered  through  the  forms  of 
our  consciousness,  but  it  remains  distinctively  the  testin.ony 
of  God  the  Holy  Spirit  and  is  not  to  be  confused  with  the 
testimony  of  our  consciousness. ''^'  Resting  on  the  language 
of  Rom.  viii.  16,  from  which  the  term  'testimony  of  the 
Spirit'  was  derived,  he  conceived  it  as  a  co-witness  along 


300 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARKIELD 


with  the  witness  of  our  spirit  indeed,  but  on  that  very  account 
distinfjuishable  from  the  witness  of  our  spirit.  This  particular 
point  is  nowhere  discussed  by  him  at  larye,  but  Calvin's  fjen- 
eral  sense  is  i)erfectly  plain.  That  there  is  a  double  testimony 
he  is  entirely  sure — the  testimony  of  our  own  spirit  and  that 
of  the  Holy  Spirit :  that  these  are  though  distinguishable  yet 
inseparable,  he  is  equally  clear:  his  conception  is  therefore 
that  this  double  testimony  runs  confluently  together  into  one. 
This  is  only  as  much  as  to  say  afresh  that  the  testimony  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  delivered  to  us  in  a  propositional  reve- 
lation, nor  by  the  creating  in  us  of  a  blind  conviction,  but 
along  the  lines  of  our  own  consciousness.  In  its  essence,  the 
act  of  the  Spirit  in  delivering  His  testimony,  terminates  on 
our  nature,  or  faculties,  quickening  them  so  that  we  feel, 
judge  and  act  diflferently  than  we  otherwise  should.  In 
this  sense,  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  coalesces  with  our 
consciousness.  We  cannot  separate  it  out  as  a  factor  in  our 
conclusions,  judgments,  feelings,  actions,  consciously  expe- 
rienced as  coming  from  without.  But  we  function  diflfer- 
ently from  before :  we  recognize  God  where  before  we  did 
not  perceive  Him;  we  trust  and  love  Him  where  before  we 
feared  and  hated  Him;  we  firmly  embrace  Him  in  His 
Word  where  before  we  turned  indifferently  away.  This 
change  needs  a;counting  for.  We  account  for  it  by  the 
action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  our  hearts :  and  we  call  this 
His  "testimony".  But  we  cannot  separate  His  action  from 
our  recognition  of  God,  our  turning  in  trust  and  love  to 
Him  and  the  like.  For  this  is  the  very  form  in  which  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  takes  effect,  into  which  it  flows, 
by  which  it  is  recognized.  We  are  profoundly  conscious 
that  of  ourselves  we  never  would  have  seen  thus,  and  that 
our  seeing  tlnis  can  never  find  its  account  in  anything  in  us 
by  nature.  We  are  sure,  therefore,  that  there  has  come  upon 


CALVm's  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      201 

US  a  revolutionary  influence  from  without :  and  we  are  sure 
that  this  is  the  act  of  God.  Calvin  would  certainly  have 
cried  as  one  of  his  most  eloquent  disciples  cries  to-day: 
"The  Holy  Spirit  is  God,  and  not  we  ourselves.  What  we 
are  speaking  of  is  a  Spirit  which  illuminates  our  spirit, 
which  purifies  our  spirit,  which  strives  against  our  spirit, 
which  triumphs  over  our  spirit.  And  you  say  this  Spirit  is 
nothing  but  our  spirit?  By  no  means.  The  Holy  Spirit, 
the  Spirit  of  God, — this  is  God  coming  into  us,  not  coming 
from  us."^*  It  is  witli  equal  energy  that  Calvin  asserts  the 
supernaturalness  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  and  repels 
every  attempt  to  confound  it  with  the  human  consciousness 
through  which  it  works.  To  him  this  testimony  is  just  God 
Himself  in  His  intimate  working  in  the  human  heart,  open- 
ing it  to  the  light  of  the  truth,  that  by  this  illumination  it 
may  see  things  as  they  really  are  and  so  recognize  God  in 
the  Scriptures  with  the  same  directness  and  surety  as  men 
recognize  sweetness  in  what  is  sweet  and  brightness  in  what 
is  bright.    Here  indeed  lies  the  very  hinge  of  his  doctrine  " 


It  has  seemed  desirable  to  enter  into  some  detail  with 
respect  to  Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit, 
not  only  because  of  its  intrinsic  interest,  but  also  because  of 
its  importance  for  understanding  Calvin's  doctrine  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  indeed  his  whole  system  of  truth, 
and  for  a  proper  estimate  of  his  place  in  the  history  of 
thought.  His  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  the 
keystone  of  his  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  God.  Men 
endowed  by  nature  with  an  ineradicable  sensus  deitatis, 
which  is  quickened  into  action  and  informed  by  a  rich  reve- 
lation of  God  spread  upon  His  works  and  embodied  in  His 
deeds,  are  yet  held  back  from  attaining  a  sound  knowledge 
of  God  by  the  corruption  of  their  hearts,  which  dulls  their 


202 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


instinctive  sense  of  God  and  blinds  them  to  His  revelation 
in  works  and  deeds.  That  His  people  may  know  Him, 
therefore,  God  lovingly  intervenes  by  an  objective  revela- 
tion of  Himself  in  His  Word,  and  a  subjective  correction 
of  their  sin-bred  dullness  of  apprehension  of  Him  through 
the  operation  of  His  Spirit  in  their  hearts,  which  Calvin 
calls  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Obviously  it  is 
only  through  this  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit  that  the  reve- 
lation of  God,  whether  in  works  or  Word,  is  given  effi- 
cacy: it  is  God,  then,  who,  through  His  Spirit,  reveals 
Himself  to  His  people,  and  they  know  Him  only  as  taught 
by  Himself.  But  also  on  this  very  account  the  knowledge 
they  have  of  Him  is  trustworthy  in  its  character  and  com- 
plete for  its  purpose:  Ijeing  God-given,  it  is  safeguarded 
to  us  by  the  dreadful  sanction  of  deity  itself.  This  being 
made  clear,  Calvin  has  laid  a  foundation  for  the  theological 
structure — the  scientific  statement  and  elaboration  of  the 
knowledge  of  God — than  which  nothing  could  be  conceived 
more  firm.  There  remained  nothing  more  for  him  to  do 
before  proceeding  at  once  to  draw  out  the  elements  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  as  they  lie  in  the  revelation  so  assured 
to  us.  except  to  elucidate  the  indicia  by  which  the  Christian 
imder  the  influence  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  strength- 
ened in  his  confidence  that  the  Scriptures  are  the  very  Word 
of  God,  and  to  repudiate  the  tendency  to  neglect  these  Script- 
ures so  authenticated  to  us  in  favor  of  fancied  continuous 
revelations  of  the  Spirit.  The  former  he  does  in  a  chapter 
(ch.  viii)  of  considerable  length  and  great  eloquence,  which 
constitutes  one  of  the  fullest  and  most  powerful  expositions 
of  the  evidence  for  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures 
which  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  Reformation  age. 
The  latter  he  does  in  a  briefer  chapter  (ch.  ix),  of  crisp 
polemic  quality,  the  upshot  of  which  is  to  leave  it  strongly 


CALVIN  S  DOCTKINE  0¥  THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOr       203 


impressed  on  the  rea<ler's  mind  that  the  whole  l<nowli:dgc 
of  God  available  to  us,  as  the  whole  knowledge  of  God 
needful  for  us,  lies  objectively  displayed  in  the  papes  of 
Scripture,  which,  therefore,  becomes  the  sole  source  of  a 
sound  exposition  of  the  knowledge  of  God. 

This  strong  statement  is  not  intended,  however,  to  imply 
that  the  Spirit-lerl  man  can  learn  nothing  from  the  more  gen- 
eral revelation  of  God  in  His  works  and  deeds.  Calvin  is  so 
far  from  denying  the  possibility  of  a  "Natural  Theology", 
in  this  sense  of  the  word,  that  he  devo*es  a  whole  chapter 
(ch.  v)  to  vindicating  the  rich  revelation  of  God  made  in  His 
works  and  deeds :  though,  of  course,  he  does  deny  that  any 
theology  worthy  of  the  name  can  be  derived  from  this 
natural  revelation  by  the  "natural  man",  that  is,  by  the  man 
the  eyes  of  wliose  mind  and  heart  are  not  opened  by  the 
Spirit  of  God, — who  is  not  uncw  ^  j  influence  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit ;  and  in  this  iise  he  denies  the  possi- 
bility of  a  "Natural  Theology".  What  the  cirong  statement 
in  question  is  intended  to  convey  is  that  there  is  nothing  to 
be  derived  from  natural  revelation  which  is  not  also  to  be 
found  in  Scripture,  whether  as  necessary  presupposition, 
involved  implication  or  clear  statement ;  and  that  beside  that 
documented  in  Scripture  there  is  no  supernatural  revelation 
accessible  to  men.  The  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God  is  not  to 
supplement  the  revelation  made  in  Scripture,  far  less  to 
supersede  it,  but  distinctively  to  authenticate  it.  It  remains 
true,  then,  that  the  whole  matter  of  a  sound  theology  lies 
objectively  revealed  to  us  in  the  pages  of  Scripture:  and 
this  is  the  main  result  to  which  his  whole  discussion  tends. 
But  side  by  side  with  it  requires  to  be  placed  as  a  result  of 
his  discussion  secondary  only  to  this,  this  further  conclusion, 
directly  given  in  his  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit, — that  only  a  Christian  man  can  profitably  theologize. 


204 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


It  is  in  the  union  of  these  two  great  principles  that  we  find 
Cahin's  view  of  the  bases  of  a  true  theology.  This  he  con- 
ceives as  the  product  of  the  systematic  investigation  and 
logical  elaboration  of  the  contents  of  Scripture  by  a  mind 
quickened  to  the  apprehension  of  these  contents  through  the 
inward  operations  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  is  on  this  basis 
and  in  this  spirit  that  Calvin  undertakes  his  task  as  a  theolo- 
gian; and  what  he  professes  to  give  us  in  his  Institutes  is 
thus,  to  put  it  simply,  just  a  Christian  man's  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  of  God. 

The  Protestantism  of  this  conception  of  the  task  of  the 
theologian  is  apparent  on  the  face  of  it.  It  is  probably, 
however,  still  worth  while  to  point  out  that  its  Protestantism 
does  not  He  solely  or  chiefly  in  the  postulate  that  the  Script- 
ures are  the  sole  authoritative  source  of  the  knowledge  of 
God. — "formal  principle"  of  the  Reformation  though  that 
postulate  be.  and  true,  therefore,  as  Chillingworth's  famous 
declaration  that  "the  Bible  and  the  Bible  only  is  the  religion 
of  Protestants"  would  be,  if  only  Chillingworth  had  kept  it 
to  this  sense.  It  lies  more  fundamentally  still  in  the  postu- 
late that  these  Scriptures  are  accredited  to  us  as  the  revela- 
tion of  God  solely  by  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit, — 
that  without  this  testimony  they  lie  before  us  inert  and 
without  eflfect  on  ou.  hearts  and  minds,  while  with  it  they 
become  not  merely  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation,  but 
also  the  vitalizing  source  of  all  our  knowledge  of  God. 
There  is  embodied  in  this  the  true  Protestant  principle, 
superior  to  both  the  so-called  formal  and  the  so-called 
material  principles — both  of  which  are  in  point  of  fact  but 
corollaries  of  it.  For  it  takes  the  soul  completely  and  for- 
cibly out  of  the  hands  of  tlie  Church  and  from  under  its 
domination,  and  casts  it  wholly  upon  the  grace  of  God.  In 
its  formulation  Calvin  gave  to  Protestantism  for  the  first 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF   THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD      2O5 

time,  accordingly,  logical  stability  and  an  inward  sense  of 
security.  Men  were  no  more  puzzled  by  the  polemics  of 
Rome  when  they  were  asked.  You  rest  on  Scripture  alone, 
you  say:  but  on  what  does  your  Scripture  rest?  Calvin's 
development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit 
provided  them  with  their  sufficient  answer:  "On  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  heart."  Here  we  see  the 
historical  importatice  of  Calvin's  formulation  of  this  doc- 
trine. And  here  we  see  the  explanation  of  the  two  great 
facts  which  reveal  its  historical  importance,  the  facts,  to 
wit,  that  Calvin  had  no  predecessors  in  the  formulation  of 
the  doctrine,  and  that  at  once  upon  his  formulation  of  it 
it  became  the  common  doctrine  of  universal  Protestantism. 


IV.       HISTORICAL    RELATIONS. 

The  search  for  anticipations  of  the  doctrine  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  among  the  Fathers  and  Scholastics'^^ 
reveals  only  such  sporadic  assertions  of  the  dependence  of 
man  on  the  inward  teaching  of  the  Holy  Spirit  for  the 
knowledge  or  the  saving  knowledge  of  God  as  could  not 
fail  in  the  speech  of  a  series  of  Christian  men  who  had  read 
their  Bibles.  A  sentence  of  this  kind  from  Justin  Martyr."'^ 
another  from  Chrysostom,'®  two  or  three  from  Hilary  of 
Poitiers,'"  almost  exhaust  what  the  first  age  yields.  It  is 
different  with  Augustine.  With  his  profound  sense  of  de- 
pendence on  God  and  his  vital  conviction  of  the  necessity 
of  grace  for  all  that  is  good  in  man,  in  the  whole  circle 
of  his  activities,  he  could  not  fail  to  work  out  a  general 
doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  God  in  all  essentials  the 
same  as  Calvin's.  In  point  of  fact,  as  we  have  already 
intimated,  he  did  so.  There  remain,  however,  some  very 
interesting  and  some  very  significant  differences  between 
the  two.*°    It  is  interesting  to  note,  for  instance,  that  where 


206 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


Calvin  speaks  of  an  innate  scnsus  deitatis  in  man,  as  lying 
at  the  root  of  all  his  knowledge  of  God,  Augustine,  with  a 
more  profound  ontology  of  this  knowledge,  as  at  least  made 
explicit  in  the  statement,  speaks  of  a  continuous  reflection 
of  a  knowledge  of  Himself  by  God  into  the  human  mind/^ 
There  is  here,  however,  probably  only  a  diflference  in  fulness 
of  statement,  or  at  most  only  of  emphasized  aspect.    On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  highly  significant  that,  instead  of  Calvin's 
doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  Augustine,  in  con- 
formity with  the  stress  he  laid  upon  the  "Church"  and  the 
"means  of  grace"  in  the  conference  of  grace,  speaks  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  as  attainable  only  "in  the  Church".*^ 
Accordingly,  in  him  also  and  his  successors  there  are  to  be 
found  only  such  anticipations  spec"J(cally  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  as  are  afforded  by  the  ...- 
creased  frequency  of  their  references  to  the  dependence  of 
man  for  all  knowledge  of  God  and  divine  things  on  grace 
and  the  inward  teaching  of  the  heavenly  Instructor.     The 
voice  of  men  may  assail  our  ears,  says  Aug-.istine,  for  in- 
stance, but  those  remain  untaught  "to  whom  that  inward 
unction  does  not  speak,  whom  the  Holy  Spirit  does  not  in- 
wardly teach" :   for  "He  who  teaches  the  heart  has  His  seat 
hi  heaven".*'^    Moses  hitwself.  yea,  ever  if  he  spoke  to  us  not 
in  Hebrew  but  in  our  own  tongut,  could  convey  to  us  only 
the  knowledge  of  what  he  scld :    of  the  truth  of  what  he 
said,  only  the  Truth  Himself,  speaking  withi.    us.  in  the 
secret  chamber  of  our  thought,  can  assure  us  though  He 
speaks  neither  in  Hebrew  nor  in  Greek  nor  in  Latin,  nor  yet 
in  any  tongue  of  the  barbarians,  but  without  organs  of  voice 
or  tongue  and  with  no  least  syllabic  sound.^*    Further  than 
this  men  did  not  get  before  the  Reformation :«'  nor  did  the 
first  Reformers  themselves  get   further.     No  doubt  they 
discerned  the  voice  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Scriptures,  as  the 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    207 

Fathers  did  before  them ;  and  in  a  single  sentence,  written, 
however,  after  the  Institutes  of  1539  (viz.,  in  1555),  Me- 
lanchthon  notes  with  the  Fathers  that  the  mind  is  "aided 
in  giving  its  assent"  to  divine  things  "by  the  Holy  Spirit".«« 
Zwingli  here  stands  on  the  same  plane  with  his  brethren. 
He  strongly  repels  the  Romish  establishment  of  confidence 
in  the  Scriptures  on  the  ipse  dixit  of  the  Church,  indeed; 
and  asserts  that  those  who  sincerely  search  the  Scriptures 
are  taught  by  God,  and  even  that  none  acquire  faith  in  the 
Word  except  as  drawn  by  the  Father,  admonished  by  the 
Spirit,  taught  by  the  unction, — as,  says  he,  all  pious  men 
have  found. *^  But  such  occasional  remarks  as  this  could 
not  fail  wherever  the  Augustinian  conception  of  grace  was 
vitally  fr'  They  show  only  that  the  doctrine  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  was  always  implicit  in  that  conception.*^ 
The  same  remark  applies  to  the  first  edition  of  Calvin's 
Institutes  (1536)  also,  though  with  a  diflference.  We  can- 
not say,  indeed,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  internal  testimony 
of  the  Spirit  to  the  divini;y  of  the  Scriptures  is  found  there 
already  in  germ*"  any  more  than  we  can  say  the  same  of 
the  Augustinian  Fathers.  And  the  criticism  passed""  on 
the  adduction  of  Melanchthon's  single  sentence  in  this  ref- 
erence to  the  effect  th-t  he  speaks  rather  "of  the  action  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  with  reference  to  the  object  of  faith,  that 
is  to  say,  to  the  contents  of  the  Word  of  God"  than  "with 
reference  to  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures  themselves",  is 
valid  for  Calvin's  first  edition.  Yet  it  is  certainly  true 
that  the  general  doctrine  of  the  internal  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  comes  much  more  prominently  forward  in  even  the 
first  edition  of  the  Institutes  than  in  any  preceding  treatise 
of  the  sort, — that  much  more  is  made  in  it  than  in  any  of 
its  predecessors  of  the  poverty  of  the  human  spirit  and 
the  need  and  actuality  of  the  prevalent  influence  of  the 


?Oti 


BENJAMIN    B.    VVARFIELD 


Spirit  of  God  that  man  may  have — whether  in  knowledge 
or  act— any  good  thing.     We  shall  have  to  go  back  to 
Augustine  to  find  anything  comparable  to  the  conviction 
and  insight  with  which  even  in  this  his  earliest  work  Calvin 
urges   these   things.      Calvin's   whole   thought    is   already 
dommated  by  the  conception  of  the  powerlessness  of  the 
human  soul  in  its  sin  in  all  that  belongs  to  the  knowledge 
of  God  which  is  salvation,  and  its  entire  dependmce  on  the 
sovereign  ojierations  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     In  this  sense  it 
may  be  said  that  the  chapters  in  the  new  Institutes  of  1539 
in  which  he  develops  this  doctrine  of  the  noetic  c  fifects  of 
sin  and  their  cure  by  objective  revelation,  documented  in 
Scripture,  and  subjective  illumination  wrought  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  lay  implicitly  in  his  doctrine  of  man's  need  and  its 
cure  by  the  indwelling  Spirit  which  pervades  the  Institutes 
of  1536.    There  he  already  teaches  that  the  written  law  was 
required  by  the  decay  of  our  consciousness  of  the  law 
written  on  the  heart :  that  to  know  God  and  His  will  we  have 
need  to  surpass  ourselves ;  that  it  is  the  Spirit  dwelling  in  us 
that  is  the  source  of  all  our  right  knowledge  of  God :  and 
that  it  is  due  to  the  power  of  the  Spirit  alone  "that  we 
hear  the  word  of  the  lioly  Gospel,  that  we  accept  it  by  faith, 
and  that  we  abide  in  this  faith"  (p.  137).     With  eminent 
directness  and  simplicity  he  already  there  tells  us  that  "our 
Lord  first  teaches  and  instructs  us  by  His  Word;  second- 
arily confirms  us  by  His  sacraments;  and  thirdly  by  the 
light  of  His  Holy  Spirit  illuminates  our  understandings 
and  gives  entrance  into  our  hearts  both  to  the  Word  and  to 
the  sacraments,  which  otherwise  would  only  beat  upon  our 
ears  and  stand  before  our  eyes,  without  penetrating  or 
operating  beneath  them"    (p.   206).      There   is,   in   other 
words,  very  rich  teaching  in  the  Institutes  of  1536  of  the 
entire  dependence  of  sinful  man  on  the  Spirit  of  God  for 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    209 

every  sound  religious  movement  of  the  soul :  but  there  is 
no  development  of  the  precise  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  not 
merely  that  the  term  testimonium  Spiritus  Sancti  does  not 
occur  in  this  early  draft,  or  occurs  only  once,  and  then  not 
in  this  sense :®»  it  is  that  the  thing  is  not  explicated  and 
is  present  only  as  implicated  in  the  general  doctrine  of  grace, 
which  is  very  purely  conceived. 

It  was  left,  then,  to  the  edition  of  1539  to  create  the 
whole  doctrine  at,  as  it  were,  a  single  stroke.®^  For,  as  we 
have  already  had  occasion  to  note,  Calvin's  whole  exposition 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  the  divinity 
of  Scripture  appears  all  at  once  in  its  completeness  in  the 
second  edition  of  the  Institutes,  the  first  edition  which  he 
issued  as  a  text-book  on  theology,  that  of  1539.  This  expo- 
sition was  reproduced  without  curtailment  or  alteration  in 
all  subsequent  editions,  and  is  thereby  given  the  great  en- 
dorsement of  Calvin's  permanent  approval :  while  the  addi- 
tions which  are  made  to  it  in  the  progressive  expansion 
of  the  treatise,  though  large  in  mass,  are  rather  devoted  to 
guarding  it  from  the  misapprehension  as  if  the  necessity 
it  asserted  for  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  in  any  way 
detracted  from  the  objective  value  of  the  indicia  of  the 
divinity  of  Scripture,  than  modify  the  positive  doctrine 
expounded. 

The  formulation  of  this  principle  of  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  by  Calvin  in  1539  had  an  extraordinary  eflfect  both 
immediate  and  permanent.^'  Universal  Protestantism  per- 
ceived in  it  at  sight  the  pure  expression  of  the  Protestant 
principle  and  the  sheet-anchor  of  its  position.  The  Luth- 
erans as  well  as  the  Reformed  adopted  it  at  once  and  made 
it  the  basis  not  only  of  their  reasoned  defence  of  Protest- 
antism, but  also  of  their  structure  of  Christian  doctrine  and 

IS 


210 


BENJAMIN   B.    WARFIELD 


of  their  confidence  in  Christian  living.®*  To  it  they  both 
continued  to  cling  so  long  and  so  far  as  they  continued 
faithful  to  the  Protestant  principle  itself.  It  has  given  way 
only  as  the  structure  of  Protestantism  has  itself  g^ven  way 
in  reaction  to  the  Romish  position,  or,  more  widely,  as  the 
structure  of  Christian  thought  has  given  way  in  rationaliz- 
ing disintegration.  No  doubt  it  has  undergone  at  the  hands 
of  its  various  expounders,  from  time  to  time,  more  or  less 
modification,  and.  in  its  joumeyings  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  has  suffered  now  and  again  some  sea-change, — 
sometimes  through  sheer  misapprehension,  sometimes 
through  sheer  misrepresentation,  sometimes  through  more 
or  less  admixture  of  both.  A  spurious  revival  of  the  doc- 
trine was,  for  example,  set  on  foot  by  Schleiermacher  in 
his  strong  revulsion  from  the  cold  rationalism  which  had  so 
long  reigned  in  Germany  to  a  more  vital  religious  faith; 
and  sentences  may  be  quoted  from  his  writings  which,  when 
removed  out  of  the  context  of  his  system  of  thought,  almost 
give  expression  to  it.**'  But  after  all,  his  revival  of  it  was 
rather  the  revival  of  subjectivity  in  religion  than  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  as  the  basis  of  all 
faith :  and  it  has  borne  bitter  fruit  in  a  widespread  subjec- 
tivism, the  mark  of  which  is  that  it  discards  (as  "external") 
the  authority  of  those  verj'  Scriptures  to  which  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit  is  borne.  Not  in  such  circles  is  the 
continued  influence  of  the  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  to  be  sought  or  its  continued  advocacy  to  be  found. 
If  we  would  see  it  in  its  purity  in  the  modern  Church  we 
must  look  for  it  in  the  hands  of  truer  successors  of  Calvin — 
in  the  writings,  'o  name  only  men  of  our  own  time,  of  Wil- 
liam Cunningham^"  and  Charles  Hodge*^  and  Abraham 
Kuyper"**  and  Herman  Bavinck."** 

As  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  note,  the  principle  of 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    211 

the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  as  the  true  basis  of  our  confi- 
dence in  the  Scriptures  as  the  Word  of  God  was  almost 
from  the  hands  of  Calvin  himself  incorporated  into  the  Re- 
formed Creeds.  We  have  already  pointed  out  the  sharpness 
and  strength  of  its  expression  in  the  Gallican  (1557-1571) 
and  Belgian  (1501-1571)  Confessions,  and  it  finds  at  least 
the  expression  of  suggestion  in  the  Second  Helvetic  Con- 
fession (1562).  It  was  not,  however,  merely  into  the  Con- 
fessions of  the  Reformation  age  that  it  was  incorporated. 
It  is  given  an  expression  as  clear  as  it  is  prudent,  as  decided 
as  it  is  comprehensive,  in  that  confession  of  their  faith 
which  the  persecuted  Waldenses  issued  after  the  massacres 
of  1655 :""'  and  it  is  incorporated  into  the  Westminster  C~n- 
fession  of  Faith  (1646)  in  perhaps  the  best  and  most  bal- 
anced statement  it  has  ever  received, — the  phraseology  of 
which  is  obviously  derived  in  large  part  from  Calvin,  either 
directly  or  through  the  intermediation  of  George  Gilles- 
pie,'"^ but  the  substance  of  which  was  but  the  expression 
of  the  firmly  held  faith  of  the  whole  body  of  ihe  framers 
of  tiiat  culminating  Confession  of  the  Reformed  Churches. 
"We  recognize  the  divinity  of  these  sacred  books",  says 
the  Waldensian  Confession  (ch.  iv).  "not  only  through  the 
testimony  of  the  Church,  but  principally  through  the  eternal 
and  indubitable  truth  of  the  doctrine  which  is  contained  in 
them,  through  the  excellence,  sublimitv  and  majesty  of  the 
pure  divinity  (du  tout  divine)  which  are  apparent  in  them, 
and  through  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  makes  us 
receive  with  deference  the  testimony  which  the  Church  gives 
to  them,  which  opens  our  eyes  to  receive  the  rays  of  the 
celestial  light  which  shines  in  the  Scriptures,  and  so  corrects 
our  taste  that  we  discern  this  food  by  the  divine  savor 
whicli  it  possesses."  The  dependence  of  this  fine  statement 
on  Calvin's  exposition  is  evident ;  but  what  is  most  striking 


212 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


about  it  is  the  clarity  with  which  it  conceives  and  the  fulness 
with  which  it  expounds  the  exact  mode  of  working  of  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  and  its  relation  to  the  indicia  of 
divinity  in  Scripture,  through  which,  and  not  apart  from 
or  in  opposition  to  which,  it  performs  its  work.  So  far 
from  supposing  that  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  is  of  the 
nature  of  a  new  and  independent  revelation  from  heaven 
or  works  only  a  blind  faith  in  us,  setting  thus  aside  all 
evidences  of  tlie  divinity  of  Scripture,  external  and  internal 
alike,  this  careful  statement  particularly  explains  that  our 
faith  in  the  divinity  of  Scripture  rests,  under  the  testimony 
of  the  Spirit,  on  these  evidences  as  its  ground,  but  not  on 
these  evidences  by  themselves,  but  on  them  as  apprehended 
by  a  Spirit-led  mind  and  heart — the  work  of  the  Spirit  con- 
sisting in  so  dealing  with  our  spirit  that  these  evidences  are, 
under  His  influence,  perceived  and  felt  in  their  real  bearing 
and  full  strength. 

An  even  more  notable  ctatement  of  the  whole  doctrine 
is  that  incorporated  into  the  Westminster  Confession  (I. 
4.  5).  and  in  a  more  compressed  form  into  the  Larger 
Catechism  (Q.  4).  "The  authority  of  the  Holy  Scripture, 
for  which  it  ought  to  be  believed  and  obeyed",  says  the 
Confession,  "dependeth  not  upon  the  testimony  of  any 
man  or  Church,  but  wholly  upon  God  (who  is  truth  itself) 
the  author  thereof;  and  therefore  it  is  to  be  received, 
becp.use  it  is  the  \\'ord  of  God.  We  may  be  moved  and 
induced  by  the  testimony  of  the  Church  to  a  high  and  rev- 
erent esteem  of  the  Holy  Scripture ;  and  the  heavenliness  of 
the  matter,  the  efficacy  of  the  doctrine,  the  majesty  of  the 
style,  the  consent  of  all  the  parts,  the  scope  of  the  whole 
(which  is  to  give  all  glory  to  God),  the  full  discovery  it 
makes  of  the  only  way  of  man's  salvation,  "-he  many  other 
incomparable  excellencies,  and  the  entire  perfection  thereof, 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      21 3 

are  arguments  whereby  it  doth  abundantly  evidence  itself 
to  be  the  Word  of  God ;  yet.  notwithstanding,  our  full  per- 
suasion and  assurance  of  the  infallible  truth  and  divine 
authority  thereof,  is  from  the  inward  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  bearing  witness  by  and  with  the  Word  in  our  heart." 
In  the  Larger  Catechism  this  is  reduced  to  the  form :  "The 
Scriptures  manifest  themselves  to  be  the  Word  of  God,  by 
their  majesty  and  purity;  by  the  consent  of  all  the  parts, 
and  the  scope  of  the  whole,  which  is  to  give  all  glory  to 
God ;  by  their  light  and  power  to  convince  and  convert  sin- 
ners, to  comfort  and  build  up  believers  unto  salvation;  but 
the  Spirit  of  God  bearing  witness  by  and  with  the  Scriptures 
in  the  heart  of  man,  is  alone  able  fully  to  persuade  it  that 
they  are  the  very  Word  of  God."  The  fundamental  excel- 
lence of  this  remarkable  statement  (for  the  full  understand- 
ing of  which  what  is  said  of  "faith"  in  chapter  xiv  of  the 
Confession  and  Question  'J2  of  the  Catechism  should  be 
compared  with  it — just  as  Calvin  referred  his  readers  to  his 
later  discussion  of  'faith'  for  further  information  on  the 
topic  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit)  is  the  care  with  which 
the  several  grounds  on  which  we  recognize  the  Sciiptures 
to  b.»  from  God  are  noted  and  their  value  appraised,  and  yet 
the  supreme  importance  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  is  safe-, 
guarded. '"^  The  external  testimony  of  the  Church  is  noted 
and  its  value  pointed  out :  it  moves  and  induces  us  to  a  high 
and  reverent  esteem  for  Scripture.  The  internal  testimony 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  Scriptures  themselves  is  noted 
and  its  higher  value  pointed  out:  they  "abundantly  evi- 
dence" or  "manifest"  the  Scriptures  "to  be  the  Word  of 
God".  The  need  and  place  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit 
is  then  pointed  out  in  the  presence  of  this  "abundai.  evi- 
dencing" or  "manifesting" :  it  is  not  to  add  new  evidence, — 
which  is  not  needed, — but  to  secure  deeper  conviction — 


214 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


which  is  needed:  and  not  independently  of  the  Word  with 
its  evidencing  characteristics,  but  "by  and  with  the  Word" 
or  "the  Scriptures".  What  this  evidence  of  the  Spirit  does 
is  "fully  to  persuade  us"  that  "the  Scriptures  are  the  very 
Word  of  God", — to  work  in  us  "full  jHjrsuasion  and  assur- 
ance of  the  infallible  truth  and  divine  authority"  of  the 
Word  of  God.  It  is  a  matter  of  completeness  of  conviction, 
not  of  grounds  of  conviction:  and  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  works,  therefore,  not  Ly  adding  additional  grounds  of 
conviction,  but  by  an  inward  work  on  the  heart,  enabling  it 
to  react  upon  the  already  "abundant  evidence"  with  a  really 
"full  persuasion  and  assurance".  Here  we  have  the  very 
essence  of  Calvin's  doctrine,  almost  in  his  own  words,  and 
with  even  more  than  his  own  eloquence  and  .precjsiop  of 
statement. 

What  Calvin  has  given  to  the  Reformed  Churches,  there- 
fore, in  his  formulation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Testimony  of 
the  Spirit  is  a  fundamental  doctrine,  which  has  been  as  such 
expounded  by  the  whole  body  of  their  theologians,  and  in- 
corporated into  the  fabric  of  their  public  Confessions.  Thus 
it  became  the  officially  declared  faith  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  in  France  and  Holland,  Switzerland,  Italy.  Scot- 
land and  America,  and  continues  to  be  the  faith  of  their 
descendants  wherever  the  fundamental  Refonned  Creeds 
arc  still  professed  and  believed. 


NOTES 


CALVIN:    EPIGONE  OR  CREATOR? 

By  fiMILE  DOUMCKGCE. 

'  Albrecht  Ritschl,  Gtschichtt  des  PUtismiu,  1880,  I.  p.  76. 
'Ibid.,  I,  p.  /o.      "...    so  legt  er  [Luther]  doch  die»e  B«tracht- 
ungen  ebenso  nahe    ..." 

*  Ibid.,  1,  p.  75.  *  Ibid.,  1,  pp.  74-7S. 

'Jahrbucher  fiir  deutsche  Theoloijie,  1878.  But  Ritschl  had  published 
the  first  chapter  of  his  History  of  Pietism  in  the  ZtiUchrift  fiir  Kirch- 
engeschichte,  July  i,  1877,  II,  pp.  iff.,  and  Kattenbusch  quotes  thence, 
p.  S>4. 

*/W<f.,  p.  354.  '/fcirf.,  p.  365. 

•  Loofs,  Leilfaden  der  Dogmtngeschichtt,  1906,  p.  876.  All  the  cita- 
tions we  make  are  found  in  the  edition  of  1893. 

•Ibid.,  p.  877.  " Ibid.,  p.  893- 

"  "Meditatio  futurae  vitae,  ihr  Begriff  und  ihre  herrschende  Stellung 
im  System  Calvins.  Ein  Beitrag  sum  Verstandniss  von  dessen  Insti- 
tutio.  1901.  Calvins  Jenseits  Christenlum  in  seinem  Verhdltnits  su 
den  religiosen  Schriften  des  Erasmus.    1902. 

''Meditatio,  p.  i.  ''Ibid.,  p.  18.  '*Ibid.,  p.  81. 

"  Bulletin  LVI,  Sept.-Oct.,  1907,  pp.  475-479. 

"Unsere  religiosen  Ersieher.  Eine  Geschichte  des  Ckristentums  in 
Lebensbildern,  1908.  The  first  volume  begins  with  Moses  and  the  sec- 
ond ends  with  Bismarck.    It  contains  also  a  sketch  of  Jesus. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  71.  -  Ibid.,  p.  78.  "  Ibid.,  p.  82. 

""Was  John  Calvin  a  Reformer  or  a  Reactionary',  in  The  Hibbert 
Journal.  Oct  1907,  pp.  171-185. 

"Ibid.,  p.  171.  "Ibid.,  p.  184.  "Ibid.,  p.  175. 

"Ibid.,  p.  182.  "Ibid.,  p.  176.  "Ibid.,  p.  171. 

"Ibid.,  p.  176.  "Ibid.,  p.  172.  "Ibid.,  p.  183. 

"Ibid.,  p.  183.  "  Ibid.,  p.  184.  " Fr.  Loofs,  Luthers 

Stellung  turn  Mittelalter  und  sur  Neuseit,  1907,  p.  5. 

"Ernst  Troeltsch,  Die  Bedeutung  des  Protestantismus  fiir  die  Ent- 
stehung  der  modernen  Welt,  1906.  At  the  same  time  Troeltsch  pub- 
lished a  history  of  Protestantism,  well  developed  and  the  result  of 
much  labor,  in  the  collection  entitled  Die  Kultur  der  Gegenwart,  Series 
I,  Part  iv:  Die  christliche  Religion.  1906,  pp.  253-458. 

"Troeltsch,  p.  12. 


2i8 


EMILIE    DOUMERGUE 


"And  even  here  the  historian  should  make  a  reservation.  Without 
doubt  authentic  Protestantism  must  be  sought  in  the  Protestantism  of 
the  i6th  century  and  of  the  Reformers,  and  not  in  the  Protestantism  of 
this  or  that  theologian  of  the  20th  century.  Yet  there  must  be  no  ex- 
aggeration. In  going  out  from  Roman  Catholicism,  in  separating  it- 
self from  it.  Protestantism  preserved,  in  spite  of  itself,  this  or  that  trace 
or  remnant  of  Catholicism,  to  divest  itself  of  which  completely  required 
some  time.  Luther  did  not  lay  aside  his  monkish  robe  the  very  day 
of  his  rupture  with  Rome. 

"Troeltsch,  p.  14. 

"Ibid.,  p.  15.  "'/fc.-rf.,  p.  28.  "Ibid.,  pp.  16-17. 

" Ibid., p.  ig.  "Ibid.,  p.  19.  "Ibid.,  p.  19. 

"Loofs,  Luthcrs  Stellung  cum  Mitlclaltcr  und  cur  Neuceit,  pp.  iif. 

"The  accusation  as  to  ascetism  is  not  new.  It  is  found  among  the 
rationalists  of  the  i8th  ceiuury,  for  example,  in  Michael  Ignaz  Schmidt, 
counsellor  of  the  court  of  Joseph  II  and  theologian,  who  in  his  His- 
toire  dcs  Allemands,  speaks  of  the  monachism  of  the  Reformers.  "The 
Reformers  had  added  to  their  temper  as  Reformers  a  pretty  dose  of 
monastic  and  melancholic  temper,  and  had  taught  a  sad  religion,  that 
madi.  men  sad".    Loofs,  Luthers  Stelluiuj,  p.  21. 

"Troeltsch,  p.  24.       "  Ibid.,  p.  24  "  f bid.,  p.  24. 

"Ibid., p. 2$.  ''Ibid.,pp.25,26.  ''Ibid., p.  27. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  28.  "  Ibid.,  pp.  22,  23.        "  Ibid.,  p.  33. 

"/fc/rf.,p.  33.  "  Ibid.,  p.  35. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  3;.  "  Ibid.,  p.  40. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  40.  "  Ibid.,  p.  41 . 

"Ritschl,  Geschichte  dcs  Pietismus.  1880,  I,  p.  24.  See  also  p.  25, 
whore  Ritschl  shows  the  origin  of  the  ideas  of  Anabaptism  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  Gregory,  etc. 

■"Albrecht  Ritschl  als  Reformations-Historiker",  in  the  Reformirte 
Kirchenceitung.  1908,  pp.  252,  253. 

•*Lot;fs,  Luthers  Stellung,  p.  15,  n.  "Aber  operiert  nicht  Troltsch  mit 
einem  gleichcn  Idealbegriff  von  'Renaissancebildung'  und  'Taufertum'? 
Das  Taufertum  des  16.  Jahrhundcrts  hatte  wahrlich  keine  modeme 
Welt  gebaut,  wenn  es  damals  zur  Herrschaft  gekommen  ware!  Nicht 
nur  die  Ereignisse  von  Miinster  sind  dafiir  ein  Beweis.  Die  Stellung 
des  gesamten  Tiiufertums  zur  Askcse  und  zum  Staat  ist  ursprunglich 
viel  mittelalterlicher  als  irgend  ctwas  im  Altprotestantismus.  Was 
'modern'  an  ihm  ist,  lasst  schon  in  der  mittelalterlichen  Mystik  sich 
gelegentlich  nachweisen.  Es  ist  eine  Ungeheuerlichkeit,  die  alle  Sym- 
pathie  mit  den  Taufern  nicht  entschuldigen  kann,  dass  Troltsch  mit 
sorglosester  Abstraktion  von  den  geschichtlich  gegebenen  Forraen  das 


'  Ibid.,  pp.  36,  37. 
"Ibid.,  p.  41. 


CALVIX  :     EPIGONE    OR    CREATOR? 


219 


Taufertum  im  17.  Jahrhundert  'seine  Apolitie  aufgeben'  lasst  (Vortrag 
S.  40;  vgl.  Kultur  S.  369f.)  und  doch  dem  von  den  Reformatoren 
f,eachteten  Taufertum',  dem  Liebling  des  modernen  Spiritualismus,  die 
Ehre  lasst,  eine  der  beiden  Hauptfaktoren  fiir  die  Entstehung  der 
moderni  n  Welt  gewesen  zu  sein.  Wer  das,  was  aus  einzelnen  Taufer- 
ischen  (aber  z.  T.  nicht  nur  TM.ucrischen)  Ideen  unter  dem  Druck 
cines  langen  Verfolgungszustt ndc^  und  untcr  der  Gunst  der  fortge- 
schrittenen  Kultur  Englands  ;  Vcrbindung  mit  calvinistischen  Tradi- 
tionen  geworden  ist,  'dem  Tau  riiii-.'  gutschreilj',  verliert  wahrlich  alles 
Recht,  den  Neuprotestantismu  lem  Altprotestantismus  gegenuber  zu 
stelkn  wie  ein  Kind,  das,  in  fremder  Familic  erzogen,  nur  die  nachsten 
Verwandten  noch  gekgentlich  an  die  geistige  Eigenart  der  Eltem 
erinnert." 

'Ibid.,  p.  20.  This  ides  is  developed  by  Troeltsch  in  Kultur,  etc., 
pp.  257  ff.  "Ibid.,  p.  15.  n. 

"Troeltsch,  pp.  60,  61.     "Ibid.,  pp.  62,  63.      "Troeltsch,  pp.  65,  66. 

"Max  Weber,  "Die  protestantische  Ethik  und  der  Geist  des  Kapi- 
talismus",  in  Archil'  fiir  so::ial  IV'ssenschaft  und  sosial  Politik.  Vol. 
XX,  1904,  and  Vol.  XXI,  1905. 

"Weber,  XX   (1904),  p.   19.       "/fc/d.,  XX  (1904),  p.  34- 

"  Ibid.,  p.  36,  and  n.  i.    "  Ibid.,  p.  41 .  "  Ibid.,  p.  43. 

"/&id.,p.46.  " /fcid.,  p.  48.  "/&id.,p.50. 

"/&irf.,  p.  26.  "Ibid.,  9.  SI. 

"Ibid..  XXI  (1905),  p.  19  and  n.  27;  pp.  35,  76,  93.  n.  5=.  96.  «.  35- 

"Ibid.,  XXI,  p.  63,  n.  123.         " Ibid.,  XX  (1904),  P-  46. 

"Ibid.,  XX   (1904),  pp.  99,  100. 

"  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss,  fully,  the  ideas  of  heteronomy  and 
autonomy.  We  are  far  from  wishing  to  say  that  Christianity  is  hos- 
tile to  the  true  autonomy  of  the  soul  and  of  man. 

" Institutio,  III,  vii,  I.  "Ibid.,  Ill,  vii,  I. 

"The  Latin  word,  abncgatio,  is  translated  by  abnegation  in  1541,  and 
by  renouncement  in  1560. 

"Institutio.  Ill,  vii,  4-         "  Institutio,  III,  vii,  5.     '^  Ibid.,  Ill,  vii,  9- 

"/Hrf.,  Ill,  viii,  9. 

"Sermons  on  Job,  Opera,  XXXIII,  p.  93- 

"Homilies  on  I  Sam.,  Opera,  XXX,  p.  681. 

"Institutio,  III,  ix,  2.        "Ibid.,  Ill,  x,  I. 

"Ibid.,  ill,  ix,  3.  "Ibid.,  Ill,  ix,  4.  "Ibid.,  Ill,  X,  I. 

"•This  last  phrase  was  added  in  1559.    Institutio  III,  x,  i. 

"'Ibid.,  Ill,  X,  2,  3. 

'"  Sermon  on  Deuteronomy,  Opera,  XXVIII,  p.  36. 

'"Ibid.,  Opera  XXVI,  pp.  163,  164. 


2JO 


EMILIE    DOUMERGUE 


*°*  Schulze  sums  up  thus  the  eschatological  character  of  the  thought 
of  Calvin :  "The  future  life  includes  in  itself  the  supreme  good 
(schlii'sst  das  hochste  Gut  in  sich);  the  presence  of  God  and  therewith 
happiness  and  salvation".    Meditatio,  p.  8. 

'^Institutio,  III,  XXV,  2.    This  text  is  that  of  1559. 

"*  Schulze,  Meditatio,  p.  8. 

"" Institutio,  III,  ix,  3.         ^"Meditatio,  p.  50. 

"•Schulze,  Meditatio,  p.  7.         '" Institutio,  III,  iii,  14. 

""Ibid.,  Ill,  iii,  20. 

'"  Sermons  on  Daniel,  Ofcra  XLV,  p.  459. 

"*  Sermons  on  Deuteronomy,  Ofrra  XXVII,  pp.  19,  20. 

'"Institutio,  I,  XV,  3.  This  is  the  text  of  1559.  It  shows  the  sense 
in  which  Calvin's  thought  is  developed,  and  rectified  the  earlier  texts  of 
the  Psychopannychia.     Opera,  V,  p.  180. 

'"Sermons  on  Deut,  Opera,  XXVIII,  p.  loi. 

"■  Sermons  on  I  Tim.,  Opera,  LIII,  p.  536. 

"'  Ibid.,  p.  534.  '"  Ibid.,  p.  537.  "•  Ibid.,  p.  533. 

""The  first  sentence  of  the  celebrated  Heidelberg  Catechism,  which 
does  not  separate  soul  and  body  in  salvation,  must  not  be  forgotten: 
Sect.  I,  Dem.  I:  "What  is  thy  only  comfort  in  life  and  in  death?  Ans. 
That  I,  with  body  and  soul,  both  in  life  and  in  death,  am  not  my  own, 
but  belong  to  my  faithful  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  etc." 

'^Institutio,  III,  xxv,  7- 

"'/Wd.,  Ill,  XXV,  7.  "•/bid..  Ill,  xxv,  8.  '" Meditatio,  p.  86. 

"Institutio,  III,  xix,  7.      '^Ibid..  Ill,  xix,  8. 

"  Sermons  on  Deut.,  Opera,  XXVI,  p.  510. 

"*  Homilies  on  I  Sam.,  Opera,  XXX,  p.  56 

""  Sermons  on  Job,  Opera,  XXXIII,  pp.  39,  41. 

'"Institutio.  Ill,  xix,  9. 

*"  Ritschl,  Geschichte  des  Pieiismus,  I,  p.  76. 

'^Uiiscre  rcligioscn  Erzichcr,  II,  p.  82.      '^Institutio,  III,  xix,  9. 

"*  Schulze,  Meditatio,  pp.  13! 


THE  REFORM ATIOX  AXD  NATURAL  LAW. 


Bv  AUCL'ST  Lan"g. 

'Teil  I,  Abt.  iv,  i.  Halfte,  1906,  pp.  253-458;  Protestantischcs  Christ- 
entum  und  Kirchs  in  der  Neuseit. 

•Bohmer,  Luther  im  Lichte  der  neueren  Forschung,  Leipzig,  1906; 
Loofs,  "Luthers  Stellung  zum  Mittelalter  und  der  Neuzeit",  Deutsch- 
evangelische  Blatter,  1907,  Augustheft;  Kattenbusch  in  Zeitschrift  fur 
Theologie  und  Kirche,  1907,  Heft  i,  and  Theologische  Rundschau,  1907, 
Heft  2;  Hunzinger,  Der  Glaube  Luthers  und  das  religionsgeschicht- 
liche  Christentum,  Leipzig,  1907. 

'Grundlinien  der  Kirchengeschichte,  p.  203. 

*  How  extraordinarily  numerous  the  forms  are  in  which  the  theories 
of  natural  law  have  developed  may  be  seen  from  the  work  of  the  acute 
professor  of  law  at  Bonn,  Karl  Bergbohm,  Jurisprudem  und  Rechts- 
philosophie.  Vol.  i,  Das  Naturrecht  der  Gegenwart,  Leipzig,  1892. 
Bergboiun  has  undertaken  to  study  the  complicated  appearances,  forms 
and  operations  of  natural  law  in  past  and  present,  and  wi*h  the  search- 
ing broom  of  criticism  to  sweep  them  away  from  the  science  of  juris- 
prudence. An  example  of  the  most  extreme  inconstancy  in  the  use 
of  the  term,  natural  law,  is  afforded  by  the  book  of  the  philosopher, 
A.  Trendelenburg,  Naturrecht  auf  dem  Grunde  der  Ethik,  Leipzig, 
1868,  a  work  which  examines  by  a  purely  philosophical  method  the 
nature  of  law,  that  is,  the  ethical  foundation  of  legal  enactment,  both 
according  to  the  principle  of  law  and  according  to  the  legal  relations 
derived  therefrom.  In  spite  of  the  fluctuating  element  in  the  con- 
ception of  natural  law,  it  remains,  nevertheless,  for  the  historian,  a 
definite  historical  quantity,  and  of  course  this  alotie  is  in  view  in  the 
following  discussion. 

*  Melanthonis  Opera,  in  Corpus  Reformatorum,  xxi,  cc.  ii6ff. 

'Ibid.,  xxi,  c.  117:  insita  nobis  a  deo  regula  iudicandi  de  moribus.  A 
little  before:  est  in  universum  fallax  humani  captus  iudicium  propter 
cognatam  caecitatem,  ita  ut  etiamsi  sint  in  animos  nostros  insculptae 
quaedam  formae  morum,  tamen  eae  deprehendi  vix  possint. 

^ Ibid.,  xiii,  c.  7.        'Ibid.,  xxi.  c.  4x7.  'Ibid.,  xxi,  c.  391. 

"Additional  passages  in  Troltsch,  Vernunft  und  Offenbarung,  pp. 
l67ff. 


AUGUST    LANG 


"  Op.  Mel.,  xi,  c.  909;  compare  also  xi,  cc  360,  639,  919;  xii,  c.  20. 

''Ibid.,  xi,  c.  912;  xii,  cc.  21,  149. 

''Ibid.,  xi,  c.  922;  cf.  xi,  cc.  361,  631,  912,  921. 

"Ibid.,  xi,  cc.  221,  36iff.,  91S;  xii,  c  22. 

"  Ibid.,  X,  cc.  699f.  The  reasons  for  and  against  are  opposed  to  each 
other  without  a  final  decision ;  the  former  are  taken  from  natural  law. 

"Ibid.,  ii,  cc.  20-22.        "Ibid.,  iii,  c.  631. 

"  Cf.  Kaltenborn,  Die  VorVdufer  des  Hugo  Grotius  auf  dem  Gebiete 
des  jus  naturae  et  gentium,  1848 ;  Troltsch,  Vernunft  und  Offenbarung. 
1891,  p.  169. 

"  Of.  cit.,  pp.  173,  137- 

"  In  the  £tudes  de  Theologie  et  d'Histoire  publiees  par  MM.  les  Pro- 
fesseurs  de  la  faculle  de  Thiol  prot.  de  Paris  en  hommage  d  la  faculte 
de  Theologie  de  Montauban  d  I'occasion  du  tr'centenaire  de  sa  fondation, 
Paris,  1901,  pp.  285-320. 

"■"von  clem  Naturrecht  oder  dem  natiirlichen  Gesetz." 

»  Op.  cit..  p.  317. 

"  Von  weltlicher  Obrigkeit,  Erlangen  edition,  22,  p.  105. 

*Erntahnung  sum  Frieden  auf  die  12  Artikel  der  Bauern,  Erlangen 
edition,  24',  p.  290. 

''Grosser  Sermon  vom  Wucher,  Weimar  edition,  6,  pp.  52,  60;  Vrn 
Kaufhandlung  und  Wucher,  Erlangen  edition,  22,  p.  202;  Von  welt- 
licher  Obrigkeit,  Erlangen  edition,  22,  p.  104. 

^  Grosser  Sermon  vom   Wucher,  Weimar  edition,  6,  p.  49. 

"  Ennchitung  aum  Frieden,  Erlsngen  edition,  24',  pp.  279,  282. 

"  Tischreden,  herausg.  von  Forstcmann  und  Bindseil,  3,  320;  4,  486; 
ll'iiniung  jii  seine  lieben  Deutscbcn,  Erlangen  edition,  25',  p.  15. 

"Auslegung  des  loi  Psalms,  Erlangen  edition,  39,  p.  284. 

"  Wider  die  himmlischen  Propheten,  Erlangen  edition,  29,  pp.   is6f. 

"Erlangen  edition,  22,  pp.  63,  76,  etc.;  Gal.  Komment,  ii,  41. 

"  So  R.  Seeberg  in  his  lecture,  "Luthers  Stellung  zu  den  sittlichen  und 
socialen  Xoten  seiner  Zeit,"  in  Ncue  kirchlichc  Zeitschrift,  1901,  p.  839- 

"Erlangen  edition,  21,  p.  285. 

■"  Erich  Brandenburg  in  his  lecture,  "Martin  Luther's  .\nschauung 
vom  Staate  und  der  Gesellschaft",  Schriften  des  Vercins  fiir  Reforma- 
tionsiieschichte,  H.  70,  has  placed  this  negative  manner  of  regarding 
the  state  too  one-sidedly  in  the  foreground. 

*Fo»  wcltlichcr  Obrigkeit,  Erlangen  edition,  22,  p.  82. 

"  .'luslegung  des  Johannes-Evm<H'liums,  Erlangen  edition,  £0,  pp.  349f. 

"  Erlangen  edition,  22,  p.  68;  50,  p.  3I7- 

"  Erlangen  edition,  24',  p.  251 ;  22,  p.  66. 


THE   REFORMATION    AND   NATURAL   LAW 


223 


'Ein  Senabrief  vom  Biichlein  wider  die  Bauern,  Erlangen  edition, 

24'.  p.  318. 

"Antwort  von  der  Gegenwehr,  Erlangen  edition,  64,  p.  265. 

"Auslegung  des  loi.  Psalms,  Erlangen  edition,  39,  p.  330. 

"  Erlangen  edition,  22,  pp.  iQ4f. 

"  "Rcchtsbrunnen."        "  Ehrhardt,  op.  cit,  pp.  2Q8i. 

"Ibid.,  pp.  290-296,  3i6ff.        "Ibid.,  p.  318. 

♦'  Ermahnung  zum  Frieden,  Erlangen  edition,  24',  p.  272. 

"Erlangen  edition,  22,  pp.  59-105;  with  regard  to  the  natural  law, 
only  pp.  i04f. 

"Compare  the  convincing  exposition  in  Loofs'  Dogmengeschichte,  e 

Aufl.,  pp.  77oflF. 
"Compare  with  regard  to  this  Loofs,  op.  cit.,  p.  775. 
"Rom.  xiii;  I  Pet.  ii. 

"So,    for    example,    Haider  die   himntlischen   Propheten,    Erlangen 
edition,  29,  p.  140. 
"  Erlangen  edition,  39,  p.  285.        °*  "VVunderleute  Gottes." 
"  On  Rom.  ii.  15. 

"  Opera  Catvini  in  Corpus  Reformatorum,  Vol.  xlix,  cc  37f. 
"  Institutio,  I,  iv,  4. 

"  Ibid.,  II,  viii,  I :  Homo  per  legem  naturalem  vix  tenuiter  degustal 
quis  Deo  acceptus  sit  cultus;  certe,  a  recta  eius  ratione  longissimo 
intervallo  distat. 

"Ibid.,  II,  ii,  22;  Finis  legis  naturalis  est,  ut  reddatur  homo  inex- 
cusabilis. 

"Ibid.,  IV,  XX,  14:  Sunt  qui  rccte  compositam  esse  rempublicam 
negcnt,  quae  neglectis  Mose  politicis,  communibus  gentium  legibus 
regitur.    Quae  sententia    .    .    .    falsa  ac  stolida  est. 

"Ibid.,  IV,  XX,  16:  Dei  lex,  quam  moralem  vocnmus  .  .  .  sola 
ifsi  h'uum  rmnium  ct  scnpus  ft  rcgula  ct  terminus  sit  oportct. 

"Ibid.,  IV,  XX,  15:    Liberias  certe  singulis  gentibus  relicta  est  con- 
dendi  quas  sibi  conducere  providerint,  Irges:   quae  tamen  ad  perpetuam 
illam  caritatis  regulam  [divinorum  praeceptorum]  exigantur,  ut  forma 
quidem  varicnt,  rationem  habeant  eandem. 
"Opera,  xa. 

"  Ibid.,  xa,  cc.  248,  264,  in  both  cases  in  a  discussion  of  the  question 
of  taking  interest,  which  Calvin,  in  distinction  from  Luther,  within  the 
limits  of  that  same  natural  equity  or  of  Christian  brotherly  love,  pro- 
nounces entirely  permissible. 
"Ibid,  xa,  cc.  236f.        "Ibid.,  xa,  c.  242. 

"In  the  Sermon  on  Deut.  xxiii,  18-20,  Opera,  xxviii,  cc.  115-124. 
"Sermnn  on  Tit.  ii.  rs-iii.  2,  Opera,  liv,  cc.  554-559- 
"  Commentary  on  I  Pet.,  Opera,  Iv,  cc.  244! 


AUGUST    LANG 


"  Cf.  Works,  iv,  pp.  496f.,  S39f.  The  position  of  John  Kmx  with 
reRard  to  the  question  of  natural  law  would  require  further  investiga- 
tion, a.  Charles  Martin,  "De  la  gcnese  des  doctrines  politiques  de 
J.  K."  in  the  Bull,  dc  la  soc.  de  t'hist.  du  prut,  franc,  1907,  pp.  iQjff. 

"  Op.  cit.,  p.  9. 

"Gierke,  n/^.  cif..  pp.  I44f.        "  fhid..  pp.  ig.  21). 

^*  Instttutir.  IV,  .\.\,  .U.         ■   IV,  x.\,  31. 

"In  The  Works  of  Rich.  Hooker,  2  vols.,  Oxford,  1841. 

"  Siiwmlliche  We-ke,  Vol.  24,  pp.  238!?. 

"•  ll'rrhs.  r84t.  i.  p.  210.         "Ibid.,  i,  pp.  26ofT. 

"Ibid.,  i,  pp.  270ti.         " /fc/rf.,  i,  p.  238.        "  Ibid.,  i,  pp.  2l7i. 

"Ibid.,  i.  pp.  308-314.        "Ibid.,  i,  p.  178.        "Ibid.,  i,  p.  178. 

"Ibid.,  i   p.  189.        "Ibid.,  i,  p.  217.        "Ibid.,  i,  pp.  178-181. 

"Ibid.,  i.  pp.  i86flf.       "Ibid.,  i,  pp.  igiff. 

"Ibid.,  i,  p.  194.        "Ibid.,  i,  pp.  Jljf.       "/feirf..  i,  p.  283. 

•*  Dc  iure  belli  el  pacis,  Prolegomena,  §  30. 

"Cf.  Bergbohm,  op.  cit.   p.  156;  Gierke,  op.  cit.,  p.  235. 

••  Op.  cit.,  Lib.  I,  cap.  iii,  dist.  8.     I  use  the  Editio  nova  of  1632. 

"Ibid.,  I,  iii.  12.    "Ibid..  I,  iv,  2.       "Ibid.,  I.  iv,  6.       '"Ibid.,  I,  iv,  7. 

'"Ibid..  Pnik-goniena.  >!  12.        ""Ibid..  I,  i.  10. 

'"Ibid..  II,  i,  i.^.        '"'Ibid..  Prolegomena,  S  13.        ""Ibid.,  I,  i,  13. 

'"Ibid..  I,  ii,  6;  compare  also  II,  i,  10.       '"Ibid.,  II,  v,  27. 

""Ch.  Bastide,  /.  Locke,  ses  theories  politiques  et  leur  influence  en 
Anglcterre,  Paris,  1906. 

'"Die  Revolutionskirchen  Englands,  Leipzig,  1868. 

"'  Bastide,  op.  cit.,  pp.  42ff.,  108. 

*"  Cf.  Bastide,  op.  cit.,  pp.  252! 

*"  Bergbohm,  op.  cit,  pp.  I5iff. ;  Troltsch,  Vernunft  und  Offenbarung, 
p.  165. 

'"Op.  Mel.,  xxi,  c.  116. 

"•Dist.  I,  c.  vii;  cf.  dist.  T.  c.  i;  dist.  TX,  c.  xi;  dist.  V  and  VL 
Bergbohm,  op.  cit.,  pp.  iS7f5F;  Gierke,  Das  deuische  Genossenschaftsrecht, 
iii :  Die  Staats-  und  Korporationslehre  dis  Altertums  und  des  Mittel- 
alters,  Berlin.  1881,  pp.  6iofF. 

"*  Cf.  Bergbohm,  op.  cit.,  p.  260,  Anm.  37. 

'"Summa  Theologiae,  Prima  secundae,  qu.  90,  91,  93,  94,  95flF. 

'"Ibid.,  qu.  91,  art.  2.        '"Ibid.,  qu.  71,  art.  6. 

'"Ibid.,  qu.  106,  art.  I.        '^ Ibid.,  qu.  95.  art.  2. 

'"  Kirchenrechtliche  Abhandlungen  von  Stuts,  6-8  Heft,  Stuttgart, 
1903,  pp.  68ff.,  lOi,  Ii3f.,  134*-.  I42ff-.  222f.,  311,  323flF.,  362,  370. 

"*  Cf.  his  book,  De  rege  et  regis  institutione,  Tolet.,  1599. 

'^  Works,  i,  p.  315.  Here  he  calls  Thomas  "the  greatest  amongst  the 
school  divines",  and  cites  Sum.  Theol.  i,  2,  qu.  91,  art.  3. 


CALVIX  AND  COMMON'  GRACE. 
By  Herman-   Bavinik. 


'Calvin,  Iiistitutio,  II,  6.  4:  III,  .',  6. 


Mil,  2.  -. 

"Ill,  2,  16. 

'Ill,  22,  I ;  23,  2. 

"II,  6.  I. 

'*  I,  2,  2. 

"  III,  25,  12. 


Mil,  2,  8. 
"II.  6.  4. 
Mil,  21,  I. 
"'!,  2,  18. 
'Mil,  2,  29. 
"C('»i»i.  OH  Luke, 


Mil,  2.  14 
Mil,  22,  I. 
'Mil,  2J,  2. 
''I,  2,  i;  11,6,  I. 
'Mil,  2.  16. 


XII.  47 


"Crtwoi.  0(1  /  Cor.,  XV,  28. 


"11,  2,  17. 
"II,  1,4. 
"I,  5,  I. 
"I.  5.3.4. 
"■II,  2,  12. 
"II,  2,  12,  18. 

"11,2,  15.  16. 

»II.3,4- 

•=11.3.5- 

"III,  6,  2-4:  8,  II. 

"  II,  2,  10. 

"Ill,  8,  2. 

"111,7.4--. 


MI,  2,  i8ff. 
MI,  .3,3. 


=  11.  2.  17. 
"Cdiiim.  oil  Roimiiis,  vii.  19-21. 
"1,5.5.  ="11,6.1. 

"I,  3.  I.  3;  5,  3:  11.2,  i8. 


"II,  2.  12. 
"II.  2,  14. 
="  II.  2,  25. 
•MI,  2,  17. 

"I,  15,8;   11,2,2. 
"  II,  2,   I.  2,  9. 
"Mil,  21,  I. 
'Mil,  8,  2ff. 


"11.2,   14,    17. 
""  II,  2,  13. 

"MI.3.4. 
•°II,  2,  14,  17. 
•"Ill,  7,  I. 

"11,2,2;  111,7,4. 

"11.2,4. 

"11,2,   11;    111,7.4. 

■''  II.  9,  iflF. 

Tcij/im.  on  /.sd/a/i,  xxiii.  12.  "  111,7,  8-10;  8,  2ff. ;  9.  i.  6- 

"111,9,3.  "111,9.4.  "111,9,4. 

"111,10,6.  'Mil.  1,  loff. 

"Ill,  10,  i;  Comin.  on  Dcut.,  i:i5;  xii:i5;  xxii.  5;  011  Isaiah, 
iii:  16;    on  Lim.,  v.  5. 

"Usury  is  here  meant  in  the  old  sense  of  the  taking  of  reasonable 
interest. 

"Coinm.  on  Isaiah  xxiii.";  on  the  Psalms  xv.°;   on  I  f'     vii.=°. 


U 


CALVIN'S  DOCTRINE  OF  TIIF,  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 
By  Rks-.iamin-  P..  Wakfield. 


'  Article  on  Ctil:ins  liistitutio.  luicli  Form  tiiid  hiluill.  in  ihrer 
,1,-Siliu-litliclicii  Enl^icki'hiiui.  printed  iti  the  Thcohujischc  Slndicii  und 
Kiitikcii  for  l8f)8,  p.  .V).  Ki..-tlin's  whole  account  of  the  origin  of  these 
sections  in  the  edition  of  1539  is  worth  readiiiy  (pp.  3S-.W). 

'Instil.  L  iii.  i  :  Queni(hiin  inesse  hiinianae  menti,  et  (|uideni  naturali 
instinctu.  (hvinitatis  sensutTi,  extra  controversiani  ponitnus;  iii.  3  ad 
iiiit.:  "This  indeed  with  all  rightly  judging  men  will  always  he  assured, 
that  there  is  enRraved  on  the  minds  of  men  divinihitis  sciisum.  qui  dclcri 
numijUiim  fotcst" :  iii.  3,  mcd.:  vigere  tamen  ac  subinde  etnergcre  queni 
maxime  extinctum  cuperent,  dcihitis  scnsum;  iv.  4  ud  fin.:  naturaliter 
insculptum  esse  deitatis  sensuin  humanis  cordibus;  iv.  4.  fin.:  nianet 
tatuen  semen  illud  quod  revelli  a  radice  nullo  modo  potest,  aliquam  esse 
divinitatem.  The  phraseology  by  which  Calvin  designates  this  "natural 
instinct"  (naturalis  instinctus:  IIL  I.  ad  init.)  varies  from  sensus 
divinitatis  or  sensus  deitatis  to  such  synonyms  as:  iiuminis  intclli- 
ijcntia.  dci  notio,  dc  notitia.  It  is  the  basis  on  the  one  hand  of  whatever 
coijmtio  dci  man  attains  to  and  on  the  other  of  whatever  religio  he 
reaches;    whence  it  is  called  the  semen  religionis. 

'That  the  knowledge  of  God  is  innate  was  the  common  property  of 
the  Reformed  teachers.  Peter  Martyr,  Loci  Communes.  1576,  fraef, 
declares  that  Dei  cogiiitio  omnium  animis  naturaliter  innata  [est].  It  was 
thrown  into  great  prominence  in  the  Socinian  debate,  as  the  Socinians 
contended  that  the  human  mind  is  natively  a  tabula  rasa  and  all  knowl- 
edge is  acquired.  But  in  defending  the  innate  knowledge  of  God,  the 
Reformed  doctors  were  very  careful  that  it  should  not  be  exaggerated. 
Thus  Lconh.  Riissen,  F.  Turrcntini  Compendium  .  .  .  auclum  et 
ilhistratum  (1695),  I.  5,  remarks:  "Some  recent  writers  explain  the 
natural  sense  of  deity  (numinis)  as  an  idea  of  God  impressed  on  our 
minds.  If  this  idea  is  understood  as  an  innate  faculty  for  knowing  God 
after  some  fashion,  it  should  not  be  denied :  but  if  it  expresses  an  actual 
and  adequate  representation  of  God  from  our  birth,  it  is  to  be  entirely 
rejected."     (Heppe,  Die  Dogmatik  der  evangelisch-rcformirten  Kirche. 

P-  4)- 

'  En  quid  sit  pura  germanaque  religio,  nempe  fides,  cum  serio  Dei 
timorc  conjuncta;  ut  timor  et  i-oluntariam  reverentiam  in  se  contineat, 
et  sccum  trahat  ligitimum  cultum,  qnalis  in  Lege  praescribitur. 

'  The  significance  and  relations  of  "the  Puritan  principle"  of  absolute 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  Ol"  THL;    KXOWTEDCE  OF   GOD 


(lepindcncf  on  the  Word  of  Goil  as  the  source  of  knowle<lge  of  His 
will,  ami  exclusive  limitation  to  its  prescriptions  of  doctrine,  life  and 
even  form  of  Church  goveriunent  .mil  worship,  are  sungested  by  Dorner, 
Hist,  of  Protest.  TlicoL,  I.  390,  who  criticizes  it  sharply  from  his  "freer" 
Lutheran  standpoint.  But  even  Luther  knew  how,  on  occasion,  to 
invoke  "the  Puritan  principle".  Writing  to  Bartimc  von  Sternberg, 
Sept.  I,  1523,  he  says:  "For  a  Christian  must  do  nothing  that  God  has 
not  commanded,  and  there  is  no  command  as  to  such  masses  and  vigils, 
but  it  is  solely  their  own  invention,  which  brings  in  money,  without 
helping  either  living  or  dead"  (Tlw  Letters  of  Muriin  Luther,  Seleeted 
and  Translated  by  Margaret  A.  Currie,  p.  115). 

'Cf.  P.  J.  Muller,  De  Godsleer  ran  Zicinyli  en  Calvijn  (1883),  p.  8: 
"If  Zwingli  follows  more  the  a  priori,  Calvin  follows  the  a  f<osteriori 
method";  and  E.  Rabaud,  Hist,  de  la  doctrine  de  I' inspiration,  etc. 
(1883),  p.  58:  "His  lucid  and,  above  everything,  practical  genius." 

'  It  is  this  distribution  of  Calvin's  interest  which  leads  to  the  impres- 
sion that  he  lays  little  stress  on  "the  thcistic  proofs".  On  the  contrary, 
he  asserts  their  validity  njost  strenuously :  only  he  does  not  believe  that 
any  proofs  can  work  true  faith  apart  from  "the  testimony  of  the  Spirit", 
and  he  is  more  interested  in  their  value  for  developing  the  knowledge  of 
God  than  for  merely  establishing  His  existence.  Hence  P.  J.  Muller  is 
wrong  when  he  denies  the  one  to  affirm  the  other,  as  e.  g..  in  his  De 
Godsleer  van  Zwingli  en  Calvijn  (1883),  p.  11:  "Neither  by  Zwingli 
nor  by  Calvin  are  proofs  offered  for  the  existence  of  God,  although 
some  passages  in  their  writings  seem  to  contain  suggestions  of  them. 
The  proposition,  'God  exists',  needed  no  proof  cither  for  themselves, 
or  for  their  coreligionists,  or  even  against  Rome.  The  so-called 
cosmological  argument  has  no  doubt  been  found  by  some  in  Zwingli 
(Zeller,  Das  theolog.  Syst.  Zwinglis  extracted  from  the  Theol.  Jahrb. 
Tubingen,  1853,  p.  33),  and  the  physico-theological  in  Calvin  (Lipsius, 
Lehre  der  ev.-prot.  Dogmatik,  ed  2,  1879.  P-  213)  ;  but  it  would  not  be 
difficult  to  show  that  we  have  to  do  in  neither  case  with  a  philosophical 
deduction,  but  only  with  a  mear  for  attaining  the  complete  knowledge 
of  God."  Though  Calvin  (also  Zwingli)  makes  use  of  the  theistic  proofs 
to  develop  the  knowledge  of  God,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  (or 
Zwingli)  did  not  value  them  as  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God.  And 
we  do  not  think  Muller  is  successful  (pp.  12  sq.)  in  explaining  away 
the  implication  of  the  latter  in  Zwingli's  use  of  these  theistic  arguments, 
or  in  Calvin's  (p.  16).  Schweitzer,  Glauhenslehre  der  ev.-ref.  Kirche 
( 1844) ,  I.  250,  finds  in  Calvin's  citation  of  Cicero's  declaration  that  there 
is  no  nation  so  barbarous,  no  tribe  so  degraded,  that  it  is  not  persuaded 
that  a  God  exists,  an  appeal  to  the  so-called  historical  argument  for 


22S 


BENJAMIN   H.   WARFIELD 


the  ilivinc  cxistincc  {if.  the  um'  of  it  liy  Zwingli,  Oficra.  III.  156)  :  but 
C;ilvin"s  rial  attituilc  to  tlic  tlui>lic  arguimut  is  rather  to  he  M.iiKht  in 
the  implications  of  the  notably  eloquent  ch.  5. 

'  P.  J.  Muller,  Dc  GodsU-i-r  v,in  /.i<-m,jli  en  Calvijn  ( 1SS3),  pp.  18  sq., 
does  not  seem  to  hear  this  in  itiitul,  althougli  he  had  clearly  stated  it  in 
his  Di'  (iodslccr  vtin  Culiijii  (  iWi ),  pp.  1.VJ3. 

'  Cf.  v.  C.  Uaur,  Die  chiisllulic  Lchrc  ion  dcr  Dri-'hii\i'jkcit,  etc., 
III.  (18.3),  p.  41  :  "Fiiim  thi>  point  of  view"— he  is  expounilinn  Calvin's 
doctrine— "the  several  manifestations  in  tlie  history  of  eligiolis  are 
conceived  not  as  stages  in  llie  gradually  advancing  evolution  of  the 
religious  consciousness,  l)ut  as  inexcusable,  sinful  aberrations,  as  wilful 
perversions  and  difacements  of  the  inborn  idea  of  God." 

'"  Cf.  J.  Cramer.  S'icuuc  li'tjdiiU.icn  of  hct  gcbicd  lan  God;)clccrdhcid 
en  ll'ijsbefieerle.  Ill    (1881),  p.  J0-> :  "My  the  Scripture  or  the   Scrip- 
tures he  1  Calvin]  understootl  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
which  have  l)een  transmitted  to  us  by  the  Church  as  canonical,  as  the 
rule  of  faith  and  life,     'flic  Apocrypha  of  the  O.  T.  as  they  were  deter- 
minc<l  by  the  Council  of  Trent,  he  excludes.    They  are  to  liim  indeed 
libii  ealcsiiisliii.  in  many  respects  good  and  useful  to  be  read :  but  they 
are   not   libri  ijiuniici  "ad   I'ldem   dogmatum   faciendam'    (Achi   Synodi 
TriJeiitiiuic,  iiim   anlidnto,   1547>"     In   a   later   article,   Dc   Ruomsch- 
Katliulieke  en   de  Oud-frotcstantschc  SchriftbescliouiK-iiKj,   1883,  p.  36, 
Cramer  declares  that  by  the   Scriptures.  Calvin  means  "nothing  else 
than  the  canon,  estal)lished  by  the  Synods  of  Hippo  and  Carthage,  and 
transmitted  by  the  Catholic  Church,  with  the  exception  of  the  so-called 
Apocrypha   of   the    O.    T.",   etc.    Cf.    Lcipoldt,    Geschichte    d.    N.    T. 
Ktinons.  II,  1908,  p.  140:   "We  obtain  the  impression  that  it  is  only  for 
form's  sake  that  Calvin  undertakes  to  test  \\-hethcr  the  disputed  books 
arc  canonical  or  not.     In  reality  it  is  already  a  settled  matter  with  him 
t'nt  they  are.     Calvin  feels  himself  therefore  in  the  matter  of  the  X.  T. 
-anon    bound    to    the    mediaeval    tradition."     Cf.    also    Otto    Ritschl. 
Diifimentjcschichte  dcs  Protcsiantiswus,  1,  1908,  p.  70.  to  the  same  effect. 
"C/.,  e.  (/..  J.   I'annier,  Lc  tciito'ujihuje  du  Saint-Esfrit   (1893),  pp. 
112  sq:  "One   fact  strikes  us  at  tirst  sight:    not   only  did  Calvin  not 
comment  on  the  Apocryphal  books,  for  which  he  wrote  a  very  short 
preface,  which  was   ever  more  and  more  abridged  in  the   successive 
editions,  but  he  did  not  comment  on  all  the  Canor  ca\  books.     And  if 
lack  of  time  may  explain  the  passing  over  of  some  of  the  less  important 
historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  was  undoubtedly  for  a  graver 
reason  that  he  left  to  one  side  the  three  books  attributed  to  Solomon, 
notably  the  Song  of  Songs.    'In  the  New  Testament  there  is  ordinarily 
mentioned  only  the  Apocalypse,  neglected  by  Calvin  undoubtedly  for 


CAIAIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  TIIK   KNOWLKUGK  OK  GOD 


critical  or  theological  tnotivi's  analogous  to  those  which  dciTmined  the 
most  of  his  contoniporarios,  hut  it  is  necessary  to  note  that  the  two  lesser 
epi'^tks  of  John  are  also  lacking,  and  that  in  speaking  of  the  iarge  epistle 
Calvin  always  expresses  himself  as  if  it  were  the  only  existing  one' 
(Reuss.   AVtMi-  (/.•   T/i.'i'/i  i/iV  di'  Sirasbourfi.  VI    (1853),  p.   Jjg).     In 
effect,  at  the  very  time  when  he  was  defending  particularly  the  authority 
of  the  Scriptures  against  the  Council  of  Trent,  when  he  was  dedicating 
to  Edward  VI,  the  King  of  England,  his  Commentaries  on  the  'Epistles 
which   are   accustomed   to   be   called   Canonical'    dSSD.   he    included 
in    the   Canon   only   the    First    Epistle   of    Peter,   the   First    Epistle   of 
J(/hn,  James  and,  at  the  very  end,  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  and 
Judc."— Reuss,   however,    in    his    History   of   the   Canon   of   the   Holy 
Scriptures  in  the  Christian  Church  (1862,  E.  T.  1884),  greatly  modities 
the  opinion  here  quoted  from  him :   "Some  have  believed  it  possible  to 
atfirm  that  Calvin  rejected  the  Apocalypse  because  it  was  the  only  book 
of  the  N".  T.,  except  the  two  short  Epistles  of  John,  on  which  he  wrote 
no  com:ncntary.    But  that  conclusion  is  too  hasty.    In  the  Institutes, 
the  Apocalypse  is  sometimes  quoted  like  the  other  .Apostolic  writings, 
and  even  under  John's  name.    If  there  was  no  commentary,  it  was 
simply  that  the  illustrious  exegete,  wiser  in  this  respect  than  several  of 
his    contemporaries    and    many    of    his    successors,    understood    that 
his  vocation  called  him  elsewhere"   (p.  .v8).    He  adds,  indeed,  of  2 
and  3  John:  "It  might  be  said  with  more  probability  that  Calvin  did 
not    acknowledge   the    canonicity   of   these    two   writings.    He    never 
quotes  them,  and  he  quotes  the  First   Epistle  of  John  in  a  way  to 
exclude  them:  Joannes  in  sua  canonica.  Instil,  iii.  2.  24:  3.  23  (0pp.  ii. 
-I15--4S3)"    But  this  opinion  requires  revision,  just  as  that  on  the  Apoc- 
alypse did,  as  we  shall  see  below.    Cf.  further,  in  the  meantime.  Reuss: 
Hist,  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  of  the  .V.  T..  ii.  347.  and  S.  Berger,  La 
Bible  au  Seicicme  Sidcle  (1879).  p.  t20.  who  expresses  himself  most 
positively:  "Calvin  expresses  no  judgment  on  the  lesser  Epistles  of  St. 
John.    But  we  remark  that  he  never  cites  them  and  that  he  mentions  the 
First   in   these   terms:   'As   John   says   in   his   canonical.'    This   word 
excludes,  in  the  thought  of  the  author,  the  two  other  Epistles  attributed 
to  this  Apostle." 

"  This  may  have  been  the  case  with  the  .Apocalypse,  which  not  only 
Reuss,  as  we  have  seen,  but  Scaliger  thought  him  wise  not  to  have 
entered  upon;  and  which  he  is— perhaps  credibly— reported  to  have 
said  in  conversation  he  did  not  understand  (cf.  Leipoldt's  Geschichte 
des  N.  T.  Kanons.  II,  p.  48,  note).  But  how  impossible  it  is  to  imagme 
that  this  implies  any  doubt  of  the  canonicity  or  authority  of  the  book 
will  be  quickly  evident  to  anyone  who  will  note  his  frequent  citation  of 


\^o 


U1:N'J.\>!I\    II.    U  AKIIKI.D 


it  ill  tile  s;iiiu'  la-liic>ii  with  cllTr  Scriptiiri'  ami  alc'iiK>i'li'  '<(  "llicr 
Scripture  (r.  -;  •  (^ft-  I-  7.0—11.  51X);  I.  ()«.1  =  H.  95":  I.  10,1.?  —  H. 
ir)6.i;  I.  114s    -  II.  5JI  ;  II.  KX.  ,15;.  Hiq.     V.  Igr.  I<)5.  IKW,  5,U'.     VI.  176. 

VII.  -■<;,  iiS.  .^,i,V  .\XXI  650).  ^'itiutiiiR"*  iiKiitiiiiiiiiK  it  by  nanif  (VII. 
■46";  '■  lii  "  II.  407).  siiitutiiiR>  liy  till  naiiu'  nf  Julin  ( 1.  715  ~  II.  4<w, 

VIII.  .\,\H  [aJonK  with  1  Johiil  ),  -niiK'tinio  hy  tho  iiaiiii'  of  both  'John' 
and  ilu  .\iiiicalyp«i'  (  I.  506—  II.  u?.  VII.  116,  XXX.  651,  XLVIII.  iJi, 
XXIV.  4,0,  and  always  with  rcvfrmcc  and  cnntidcncc  as  a  Scriptural 

1 k.     Ho   even   expressly   cites   it   uiickr   the   name   nf   Scripture   and 

explicitly  as  the  dictntinn  nf  the  Spirit:    VII.  5.V),  "Fear  not.  says  the 

Scripture   (  Kccles.   .wiii.  jj) X^ain   (Rev.  x.xii.   it)    ...    and 

(John  XV.  2)";  I.  6.'4,  "Rlsewhere  also  the  Spirit  testilies  ..." 
(aliin>{  with  Daniel  and  Paul).  Cf.  also  such  iiassai'es  as  II.  7.^1,  "N'or 
di'e*  the  .\p'icalyp«e  which  they  quote  afford  them  any  support  .  .  .  "; 
.XLVIII.  j.^S,  "I  sliould  like  to  ask  the  Papists  if  they  think  John  was 
so  stupid  that   .   .   .  etc.  (Rev.  xxii.  H)":   also  VI.  ,i6<):   V.  ii)8. 

"We  use  the  simple  expression  "the  Kiiistle  of  John";  the  apparently, 
!)ut  only  app.irently,  sfrotiKer  and  nurc  exclusive,  "the  Canonical  Kpistlc 
of  John",  which  C.dvin  employs,  although  it  wi  uld  he  misleading  in 
our  associations,  is  its  exact  synonym.  Th.se  somewhat  numerous 
writers  who  I.ave  quoted  the  form  "the  Ciiitiuiicil  ['"pistle  of  John" 
.'IS  if  its  Use  ir.iplied  the  denial  of  the  rdii'iiiitily  of  the  other  epistles 
of  John  forget  that  this  was  the  ordinary  desiijnation  in  the  West  of 
the  Cathi  li.  Fpistles — "the  Seven  Canonical  Kpistles" — and  that  they 
are  all  currently  cited  hy  this  title  by  Western  writers.  The  matter  has 
I  ten  set  riiilit  by  .\.  Lang:  Dir  Bckchruiui  Joh.iiuiis  Ciilliiis  (II.  I.  of 
nonwetch  .ind  Seebers's  Sludirn  zur  (icschiclitc  dcr  Thrnlni/ic  und  dcr 
KinUr  (  1.^07),  pp.  .>6-.j<)).  On  the  title  "Canonical  Epistles"  f(ir  the 
Citholic  Kpistks.  see  Liicke.  SK.  I,S.^6,  iii.  64.v6.:o ;  Bleek,  hitrod.  In  the 
X.  '/'..  S  -'oj  at  einl ;  HilKentield,  lii:i!cituii;j  in  d.  .V.  7"..  p.  r.^.i:  Westcott, 
/:/'/'■  "/  ■*>'•  J''lii:,  p.  xxix:  Salmond.  Hastings  BD.  I.,  p.  ,360.  In  1551, 
Calvin  published  liis  Ci<:innritt,iri!  in  l:f<ist<l.is  Cnnitniciis — that  is  on 
the  Catholic  F.pist'.cs:  also  his  Coiniv.ciit^iirc  sur  I't^fistrc  Cuiiottiquc  dc 
St.  Jiiiii,  i.  (•..  on  "the  Fpistle  of  John";  also  his  Cniniin'iitijirc  sur 
rp.l<istrc  Caiioniquc  dc  S.  Judf.  Calvin  does  not  seem  ever  to  have 
happened  to  quote  from  3  and  ,1  J.hn.  The  reference  given  in  the 
Indix  printed  in  Ol>f.  xxii,  viz..  .?  Jno.  g,  Off',  x,  part  2.  p.  81,  occurs 
in  a  letter,  nrt  by  Calvin  but  by  Christof  Libcrtctus  to  Farcl.  Cf.  J. 
Leip.'ddt.  (icschichtc  dcs  X.  T.  Kiiiidiis  (jnd  Part,  Leipzig.  IQ08),  p.  148. 
note  I  :  "The  smaller  Johannine  Epistles  Calvin  seems  never  to  have 
citeil.  He  cites  1  John  in  Inst.  III.  ii.  2\  by  the  formula:  dicit  Johannes 
in  sua  canonica.     Xeverthelcss  it  is  very  questionable  whether  inferences 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  ok  god    231 

can  l>e  drawn  from  this  fcrmula  as  to  Calvin's  allituJe  to  2  and  J  ,  .o." 
He  adds  a  reference  to  Lang  as  above. 
"  Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  II.V 

"Ofi-ni.  xi,  674-6-6:  cf.  lUiisson.  distellion  (i«93).  I-  198-199- 
Buisson  discusses  the  whole  incident  and  quotes  from  the  minutes  of 
the  Council  before  which  Cast.llion  brought  the  matter:  the  point  of 
tiispme  is  there  briefly  expressed  thus:  'Moss'  Calvin  recognizes  a» 
holy,  and  the  said  Hastian  repudiates"  the  book  in  question. 

"  Calvin  employs  all  these  "three  books  attributed  to  Solomon"  freely 
as  Scripture  and  deals  with  them  precisely  as  he  does  with  other 
Scriptures.  As  was  to  be  expected,  he  cites  Proverbs  most  frequently. 
Canticles  least :  but  he  cites  them  all  as  Solomon's  and  as  authoritative 
Scripture.  "'I  have  washed  my  feet'  says  the  believing  soul  in  Solo- 
mon ..."  is  the  way  he  cites  Canticles  (Oft-  i-  778,  ii.  SSq,  cf. 
vii  760).  "They  make  a  buckler  of  a  sentence  of  Solomon's,  which  is 
as  contrary  to  them  as  is  no  other  that  is  in  the  Scriptures"  (vii.  l^o) 
is  the  way  he  cites  Ecclesiastes.  He  indeed  expressly  contrasts  Ecclcsi- 
astes  as  genuine  Scripture  with  the  Apocryphal  books:  "As  the  soul 
has  an  origin  apart,  it  has  also  another  preeminence,  and  this  is  what 
Solomon  means  when  he  says  that  at  death  the  body  returns  to  the 
tarth  from  which  it  was  taken  and  the  soul  returns  to  God  who  gave  it 
(Feci  xii.  7).  For  this  reason  it  is  said  in  the  Book  of  Wisdom  (11.  23) 
th.it  man  is  immortal,  seeing  that  he  was  created  in  the  image  of  God. 
This  is  not  an  authentic  book  of  Holy  Scripture,  but  it  is  not  improper 
to  avail  ourselves  of  its  testimony  as  of  an  ancient  teacher  (Docteur 
ancien)— although  the  single  reason  ought  to  be  enough  for  us  that  the 
image  of  God.  as  it  has  been  placed  in  man.  can  reside  only  in  an 
immortal  soul,  etc."  (vii.  112.  I544)-  . 

"Cf  \  Bossert  Cihiii  (1906).  p.  6:  "Humanist  himself  as  well  as 
profound  theologian  ..."  Charles  Borgeaud.  Histoire  de  rUm- 
vcrsitc  de  Gcnhc  (1900).  p.  21:   "Before  he  was  a  theologian.  Calvm 

was  a  Humanist   ..."  ,,,..• 

"Cf  the  Preface  he  prefixed  to  the  Apocryphal  Books  (for  the  history 
of  which,  sec  opera,  ix.  827.  note):  "These  books  which  are  called 
Apocryphal  have  in  all  ages  been  discriminated  from  th^se  which  are 
without  difficulty  shown  to  be  of  the  S.icred  Scriptur.^s.  For  the 
ancients,  wishing  to  anticipate  the  danger  that  any  profane  books  should 
be  mixed  with  those  which  certainly  proceeded  from  the  holy  Spirit, 
made  a  roll  of  these  latter  which  they  called  'Canon' ;  mean  ng  by  this 
word  that  all  that  was  comprehended  under  it  was  the  ass-.rcd  ru  e  ti. 
wliicb  wc  should  attach  ourselves.  Upon  the  others  they  imposed  the 
n.me  of  Apocrypha;    denoting  that  they  were  to  be  hell  as  private 


PT-'.^- 


23^ 


BENJAMIN  B.   WARFIELD 


writings  and  n,  i  amhcnticated,  like  public  documents.  Accordingly 
the  difference  between  the  former  and  latter  is  the  same  as  that  between 
an  instrument,  passed  before  a  notary,  and  sealed  to  be  received  by  all, 
and  the  writing  of  some  particular  man.  It  is  true  they  are  not  to  be 
despised,  seeing  that  they  contain  good  and  useful  doctrine.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  only  right  that  what  we  have  been  given  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
should  have  preeminence  above  all  that  has  come  from  men."  Cf.,  in 
his  earliest  theological  treatise,  the  Psychopannychia  of  1534-1542  {Ofp. 
V.  182),  where,  after  quoting  Ecclus.  xvii.  i  and  Wisd.  ii.  z^i  as  "two 
sacred  writers",  he  adds:  "I  would  not  urge  the  authority  of  these 
writers  strongly  on  our  adversaries,  did  they  not  oppose  them  to  us. 
They  may  be  allowed,  however,  some  weight,  if  not  as  canonical,  yet 
certainly  as  ancient,  as  pious,  and  as  received  by  the  suffrages  of  many. 
But  let  us  omit  them  and  let  us  retain  ..."  etc.  In  the  Psycho- 
pannychia  his  dealing  with  Baruch  on  the  other  hand  is  more  wavering. 
On  one  occasion  (p.  205)  it  is  quoted  with  the  formula,  "sic  enim 
loquitur  propheta"  and  on  another  (p.  229),  "in  prophetia  Baruch" 
corrected  in  1542.  In  the  Institutes  of  1536  he  quotes  it  as  Scripture: 
"alter  vero  propheta  scribit"  {Op p.  i.  82), — referring  back  to  Daniel. 
This  is  already  corrected  in  1539  (i.  906;  cf.  ii.  632).  In  1534-1536, 
then,  he  considered  Baruch  canonical :  afterwards  not  so.  His  dealing 
with  it  in  v.  271  (1537),  vi.  560  (i545)i  vi.  638  (1546)  is  ad  hominem. 

"Acta  Synodi  Tridentinae,  cum  Antidoto  (1547). 

"  Vera  ecclesiae  reformandae  ratio,  p.  613 :  quae  divinitus  non  esse 
prodita,  sani  omnes,  saltim  ubi  moniti  fuerint  judicabunt. 

"Acta  Synodi  Tridentinae,  cum  antidoto:  Quantum,  obsecro,  a 
Spiritus  Sancfi  majestati  aliena  est  haec  confessio! 

''This  is  translated  from  the  French  version,  ed.  Meyrueis,  IV.  743. 
The  Latin  is  the  same,  though  somewhat  more  concise :  nihil  Petro 
indignum,  ut  vim  spiritus  apostolict  et  gratiam  ubique  appareat :  earn 
prorsus  repudiare  mihi  religio. 

"  Haec  fictio  indigna  esset  nimistro  Giristi,  obtendere  alienam  per- 
sonam. 

"♦Ed.   Meyrueis,  IV.  780.  'Ibid.,  IV.  .^62. 

"Ibid.,  IV.  694.  Latin:  mihi  ad  epistolam  banc  recipiendam  satis  est, 
quod  nihil  continet  Christi  apostolo  indignum. 

"  Cf.  J.  Cramer,  as  cited,  p.  126:  "It  was  thus,  in  the  first  place,  as  the 
result  of  scientific  investigations  that  Calvin  fixed  the  limits  of  the 
canon  .  .  .  not  a  priori,  but  a  posteriori,  that  he  came  to  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  canonicity  of  the  Biblical  books."  But  especially  see  the 
excellently  conceived  passage  on  p.  155,  to  the  following  effect:  "What 
great  importance  Calvin  attaches  to  the  question  whether  a  Biblical 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    233 


book  is  apostolic!    If  it  is  not  apostolic,  he  does  not  recognize  it  as 
canonical.    To  determine  its  apostolicity,  he  appeals  not  merely  to  the 
ecclesiastical  tradition  of  its  origin,  but  also  and  principally  to  its  con- 
tents.   This  is  what  he  does  in  the  case  of  all  the  antilegomena.    The 
touchstone  for  this  is  found  in  the  homologoumena.    That  he  undertakes 
no  investigation  of  the  apostolic  origin  of  these  latter  is  a  matter  of 
course.    This,  for  him  and  for  all  his  contemporaries,  stood  irreversibly 
settled.    The  touchstone  employed  by  Calvin  is  a  scientific  one.    The 
testimonium    Spiritus   Sancti   no   doubt   made   its   iniluence   felt.    But 
without  the  help  of  the  scientific  investigation,  this  internal  testimony 
would  not  have  the  power  to  elevate  the  book  into  a  canonical  book. 
That  Calvin  was  treading  here  in  the  footprints  of  the  ancient  Church 
will  be   understood.    The   complaint    sometimes   brought   against   the 
Christians  of  the  earliest  centuries  is  unfounded,  that  they  held  all 
writings   canonical   in   which   they    found   their   own   dogmatics.    No 
doubt  they  attached  in  their  criticism  great  weight  to  this.    But  not 
less  to  the  question  whether  the  origin  of  the  books  was  traceable  back 
to  the  apostolic  age,  and  their  contents  accorded  with  apostolic  doc- 
trine, as  it  might  be  learned  from  the  indubitably  apostolic  writings. 
So  far  as  science  had  been  developed  in  their  day,  they  employed  it  in 
the  formation  of  the  canon   ..."    In    a  later  article  Cramer  says: 
"In  the  determination  of  the  compass  of  Scripture,  Calvin,  like  Luther, 
took  his  start  from  the  writings  which  more  than  the  others  communi- 
cated the  knowledge  of  Christ  in  His  kingdom  and  had  been  recog- 
nized always  by  the  Church  as  genuine  and  trustworthy.    Even  if  the 
results  of  his  criticism  were  more  in  harmony  with  the  ecclesiastical  tra- 
dition, than  was  the  case  with  those  of  the  German  reformer,  he  yet 
walked  in  the   self-same  critical  pathway.    He  took  over  the   canon 
of  the  Church  just  as  little  as  its  version  and  its  exegesis  without 
scrutiny"   (De  Roomsch-Katholieke  en  de  Oud-protestansche  Schrift- 
heschouvAng,  1883,  pp.  31-32).    Cramer  considers  this  critical  procedure 
on  Calvin's  part  inconsistent  with  his  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit,  but   (p.  38)   he  recognizes  that  we  cannot  speak  of  it  as  the 
nodding  of  Homer :  "It  is  not  here  and  there,  but  throughout ;  not  in  his 
exegetical  writings  alone,  but  in  his  dogmatic  ones,  too,  that  he  vvalks 
in  this  critical  path.    We  never  find  the  faintest  trace  of  hesitation." 
"Comment  on  John  viii.  I   (Meyrueis*  ed.  of  the  Commentaries,  II. 

169).  .      , 

"Quomodo  Jeremiae  nomen  obrepserit,  me  nescire  fateor,  nee  anxie 

laboro;  certe  Jeremiae  nomen  errore  positum  esse  pro  Zacharia  res 

ipsa  ostcndit :  quia  nihil  tale  apud  Jeremiam  legitur. 

"Opera,  III.  100.  note  3. 


234 


BENJAMIN  B.   WARFIELD 


"' C7.  CraiiKT,  as  cited,  pp.  116-117:  "Calvin  does  not  largely  busy 
himself  with  textual  criticism.  He  follows  the  text  which  was  generally 
received  in  his  day.  It  deserves  notice  only  that  he  exercises  a  free 
and  independent  judgment  and  recognizes  the  rights  of  science." 
Lranur  adduce?  his  treatment  of  i  Jno.  v.  7  and  proceeds:  "He  comes 
forward  on  scientific  grounds  against  the  Vulgate.  The  decree  of 
Trent  that  this  version  must  be  followed  as  'authentical',  he  finds  silly; 
and  reverence  for  it  as  if  it  had  fallen  down  from  heaven,  ludicrous. 
"How  can  anyone  dispute  the  right  to  appeal  to  the  original  text? 
And  what  a  bad  version  this  is!  There  are  scarcely  three  verses  in 
any  page  well  rendered'  {Actu  Synod.  Trident.,  etc.,  pp.  414-416)." 

"''  Institutes,  I.  vii.  10.     Cf.  I.  vi.  203. 

"1.  vii.  5  ad  init:  "We  have  received  it  from  God's  own  mouth  by 
the  ministry  of  men. 

■"  It  is  quite  common  to  represent  Calvin  as  without  a  theory,  at 
least  an  expres.>;ed  theory,  of  the  relation  of  the  divine  and  human 
authors  of  Scripture.  Thus  J.  Cramer,  as  cited,  p.  10.^,  says:  "How 
we  are  to  understand  the  relation  of  the  divine  and  human  activities 
through  which  the  Scriptures  were  produced  is  not  exactly  defined 
by  Calvin.  A  precise  theory  of  inspiration  such  as  we  meet  with  in  the 
later  dogmaticiaiis  is  not  found  in  him."  Cramer  is  only  sure  that 
Calvin  did  not  hold  to  the  theory  which  later  Protestants  upheld: 
"It  is  true  that  Calvin  gave  the  impulse  (from  which  the  later  dogmatic 
view  of  Scripture  grew  up),  more  than  any  other  of  the  Reformers. 
But  we  must  not  forget  that  here  we  can  speak  of  nothing  more  than 
the  impulse.  We  nowhere  find  in  Calvin  such  a  magical  conception  of 
the  Bible  as  we  find  in  the  later  dogmaticians.  It  is  true  he  used  the 
term  "dictare'  and  other  expressions,  which  he  employs  under  the 
influence  of  the  terminology  of  his  day,  but  on  the  other  hand  .  .  , 
in  how  many  respects  does  he  recognize  the  human  factor  in  the 
Scriptures!"  (p.  142).  Similarly  Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  200:  "In  any 
case  Calvin  has  not  written  a  single  word  which  can  be  appealed  to  in 
favor  of  literal  inspiration.  What  is  divine  for  him,  if  there  is  any- 
thing spccificilly  divine  beyond  the  contents,  the  brightness  of  which 
is  reflected  upon  tlie  container,  is  the  sense  of  each  book,  or  at  most  of 
each  phrase,— never  the  employment  of  each  word.  Calvin  would  have 
deplored  the  petty  dogmatics  of  the  Consensus  Helveticus,  which  de- 
clare^i  the  vowel  points  of  the  Hebrew  text  inspired,  and  the  exaggera- 
tions of  the  tlie(^pnci!sty  of  the  nineteenth  century."  Yet  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  Calvin  held  both  to  "verbal  inspiration"  and  to 
"the  inerrancy  of  Scripture",  however  he  may  have  conceived  the 
action  of  God  which  secured  these  things. 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    235 


"Cf.  Otto  Ritschl,  Dogmengeschichte  des  Protestantismus,  1908,  I., 
p.  63 :  "If  we  may  still  entertain  doubts  whether  BuUinger  really  de- 
fended the  stricter  doctrine  of  inspiration,  it  certainly  is  found  in 
Calvin  after  1543.  He  may  have  merely  taken  over  from  Butzer  the 
expression  Spiritus  Saiicti  aiiuuiucitscs;  but  it  is  peculiar  to  him  that 
he  conceives  both  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  inclusively  as  con- 
tained in  the  historical  enumerations,  and  those  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, as  arising  out  of  a  verbal  dictation  of  the  Holy  Spirit." 

"These  phrases  are  brought  together  by  J.  Cramer  (as  cited,  pp. 
102-3)  from  the  Comments  on  2  Tim.  iii.  16  and  2  Pet.  i.  20. 

"  Cf.  Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  203 :  "The  Word  of  God  is  for  him  one, 
vcrbum  Dei,  and  not  verba  Dei.  The  diversity  of  authors  disappears 
before  the  unity  of  the  Spirit." 

"Ab  ipsissimo  Dei  ore  ad  nos  fluxuissi. 

"  E  coelo  fluxuissi,  acsi  vivae  ipsae  Dei  voces  illic  exaudirentur. 

"Hoc  prius  est  membrum,  eandem  scripturae  reverentiam  deberi 
quam  Deo  deferimus,  quia  ai.  eo  solo  manavit,  nee  quicquam  humani 
habet  admixtum. 

"Justa  reverentia  indc  nascitur,  quam  statuimus,  Deum  nobiscum 
loqui,  non  homines  mortales. 

"  The  account  of  Calvin's  doctrine  of  inspiration  given  by  E.  Rabaud, 
Histoirc  de  la  doctrine  dc  rinspWation  .  .  .  dans  les  pays  de  langue 
francaise  (1883).  pp.  52  sq.,  is  worth  comparing.  Calvin's  thought  on 
this  subject,  he  tells  us,  was  more  precise  and  compact  than  that  of  the 
other  Reformers,  although  even  lis  conception  of  inspiration  was  far 
from  possessing  perfectly  firm  contours  or  supplying  the  elements  of 
a  really  systematic  view  (521.  He  was  the  first,  nevertheless,  to  give 
the  subject  of  Sacre<l  Scripti  re  a  fundamental,  theoretic  treatment,  led 
thereto  not  by  the  pressure  of  controversy,  but  by  the  logic  of  his 
systematic  thought:  for  his  doctrine  of  inspiration  (not  yet  distin- 
guished from  revelation)  is  one  of  the  essential  bases,  if  not  the  very 
point  of  departure  of  his  dogmatics  (55).  To  him  "the  Bible  is 
manifestly  the  word  of  God,  in  which  he  reveals  himself  to  men",  and 
as  such  'proceeds  from  God".  "But"  (pp.  56  sq.)  "the  action  of  God 
does  not,  in  Calvin's  view,  transform  the  sacrtd  authors  into  machines. 
Jewish  verbalism.  Scriptural  materialism,  may  be  present  in  germ  in  the 
ideas  of  the  Instittites—and  the  cold  intellects  of  certain  doctors  of  the 
Protestant  scholasticism  of  the  next  century  developed  them— but  they 
are  very  remote  from  the  thoutjlit  of  the  Reformer.  Chosen  and 
ordained  by  God.  the  Biblical  writers  were  subject  to  a  higher  impulse; 
they  received  a  divine  illumination  which  increased  the  energy  of  their 
natural  faculties ;  they  understand  the  Revelation  better  and  transmitted 


236 


BENJAMIN  B.   WAKFIELD 


it  more  faithfully.  It  was  scarcely  requisite  for  this,  however,  that 
they  shoulil  be  passive  instruments,  simple  secretaries,  pens  moved  by 
the  Fluly  Spirit.  Appointed  but  intelligent  org,ins  of  the  divine  thought, 
far  from  being  subject  to  a  dictation,  in  complete  obedience  to  the 
immediate  will  of  God,  they  acted  under  the  impulsion  of  a  personal 
faith  which  God  communicated  to  them.  'N'ow,  whether  God  was 
manifested  to  men  by  visions  or  oracles,  what  is  called  celestial  wit- 
nesses, or  ordained  men  as  His  ministers  who  taught  their  successors 
by  tradition,  it  is  in  every  case  certain  that  He  impressed  on  their 
hearts  such  a  certitude  of  the  doctrine,  that  they  were  persuaded  and 
convinced  that  what  had  been  revealed  and  preached  to  them  proceeded 
from  the  true  God :  for  He  always  ratified  His  word  so  as  to  secure 
for  it  a  credit  .ibove  all  human  opinion.  Finally,  that  the  truth  might 
uninterruptedly  remain  continually  in  vigor  from  age  to  age,  and  be 
known  in  the  world,  He  willed  that  the  revelations  which  He  had 
cnminitted  to  the  hands  of  the  Fathers  as  a  deposit,  should  be  put  on 
record :  and  it  was  with  this  design  that  He  had  the  Law  published, 
to  which  he  afterwards  added  the  Prophets  as  its  expositors'  (Insti- 
tutes, I.  vi.  2).  These  few  lines  resume  in  summary  form  the  very 
substance  of  Calvin's  doctrine  of  inspiration.  We  may  conclude  from 
it  that  he  did  not  give  himself  to  the  elaboration  of  this  dogma,  with  the 
tenacity  and  logical  rigor  which  his  clear  and  above  all  practical  genius 
employed  in  the  study  and  systematization  of  other  points  of  the  new 
doctrine.  We  shall  seek  in  vain  a  precise  declaration  on  the  mode  of 
revelation,  on  the  extent  and  intensity  of  inspiration,  on  the  relation 
of  the  book  and  the  doctrine.  None  of  these  questions,  as  we  have 
already  had  occasion  to  remark,  had  as  yet  been  raised :  the  doctors 
gave  themselves  to  what  was  urgent  and  did  not  undertake  to  prove 
or  discuss  what  was  not  yet  either  under  discussi  .1  or  attacked.  The 
principle  which  was  laid  down  sufficed  them.  God  had  spoken — this 
was  the  faith  which  every  consciousness  of  the  time  received  without 
repugnance,  and  against  which  no  mind  raised  an  objection.  To  search 
out  how  He  did  it  was  wholly  useless :  to  undertake  to  prove  it,  no 
less  so"  (p.  58).  There  is  evident  in  this  passage  a  desire  to  minimize 
Calvin's  view  of  the  divinity  of  Scripture:  the  use  of  the  passage  from 
I.  vi.  2  as  the  basis  of  an  exposition  of  his  doctrine  of  inspiration  is 
indicative  of  this — whereas  it  obviously  is  a  very  admirable  account  of 
how  God  has  made  known  His  will  to  men  and  preserved  the  knowl- 
edge of  it  through  time.  The  double  currents  of  desire  to  be  true  to 
Calvin's  own  exposition  of  his  doctrine  and  yet  to  withhold  his  impri- 
matur from  what  the  author  believes  to  be  an  overstrained  doctrine, 
priiduces  some  strange  confusion  in  his  further  exposition. 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    237 


"Cf.  J.  Cramer,  as  cited,  p.  114:  "How  Calvin  conceives  of  this 
dktarc  by  the  Holy  Ghost  it  is  difficult  to  say.  He  borrowed  it  from 
the  current  ecclesiastical  usage,  which  employed  it  of  the  auclor  fri- 
marius  of  Scripture,  as  indeed  also  of  tradition.  Thus  the  Council  of 
Trent  uses  the  expression  dictante  Sfintu  Sancto  of  the  unwritten  tra- 
dition inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit."  Otto  Ritschl,  Dogmcngcschkhtc 
dcs  Protcstantismus,  I,  1908,  p.  59,  argues  for  taking  the  term  strictly 
in  Calvin.  It  i=  employed,  it  is  true,  in  contemporary  usage  in  the 
figurative  sense,  of  the  deliverances  of  the  natural  conscience,  for 
example;  and  some  Reformed  writers  use  it  of  the  internal  testimony 
of  the  Spirit.  Calvin  also  himself  speaks  as  if  he  employed  it  of  Script- 
ure only  figuratively,— f.  g..  Corpus  Ref.  xxix,  p.  632:  verba  quodam- 
niodo  dictante  Christi  Spiritu.  Nevertheless,  on  the  whole  Ritschl 
thinks  he  meant  it  in  the  literal  sense. 

**  Cf.,  e.  g.,  J.  Cramer,  as  cited,  pp.  114-116,  whose  instances  are  fol- 
lowed in  the  remarks  which  succeed.  Cf.  also  p.  125.  How  widespread 
this  effort  to  discover  in  Calvin  some  acknowledgment  of  errors  in 
Scripture  has  become  may  be  seen  by  consulting  the  citations  made  by 
Dunlop  Mor.r> .  The  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Refiezc,  1893,  p.  60: 
he  cites  Cremer,  van  Oosterzee,  Farrar.  Cf.  even  A.  H.  Strong,  Syst. 
TlieoL,  ed.  1907,  vol.  I,  p.  21;,  whose  list  of  "theological  writers  who 
admit  the  errancy  of  Scripture  writers  as  to  some  matters  unessential 
to  their  moral  and  spiritual  teaching"  requires  drastic  revision.  Leipoldt 
(Geschichte  d.  N.  T.  Kanons,  H,  p.  169)  says:  "Fundamentally  Calvin 
holds  fast  to  the  old  doctrine  of  verbal  inspiration.  His  sound  his- 
torical sense  leads  him.  here  and  there,  it  is  true,  to  break  through  the 
bonds  of  this  doctrine.  In  his  harmony  of  the  Gospels  (Cummentarii 
in  harmoniam  ex  Mat.  et  Lk.  comfositam,  i£55).  '•  g>  Calvin 
shows  that  the  letters  are  not  sacred  to  him;  he  moves  much  more 
freely  here  than  Martin  Chemnitz.  But  in  other  cases  again  Calvin 
draws  strict  consequences  from  the  doctrine  of  verbal  inspiration.  He 
ascribes,  e.  g.,  to  all  four  Gospels  precisely  similar  authority,  although 
he  (with  Luther  and  Zwingli)  considers  John's  gospel  the  most  beau- 
tiful of  them  all." 

"This  is  solidly  shown,  e.  g.,  by  Dunlop  Moore,  as  cited,  pp.  61-62: 
also  for  .^cts  vii.  16. 

"•  Despite  his  tendency  to  lower  Calvin's  doctrine  of  inspiration  with 
respect  to  its  effects,  J.  Cramer  in  the  following  passage  (as  cited,  pp. 
120-121)  gives  in  general  a  very  fair  statement  of  it:  "We  have  seen 
that  Calvin,  although  he  has  not  given  us  a  completed  theory  of  inspi- 
ration, yet  firmly  believed  in  the  inspiration  of  the  entirety  of  Scripture. 

It  is  true  we  do  not  find  in  him  the  crass  expressions  of  the  later 


-'38 


BENJAMIN  B.   WAR  FIELD 


Ktfi  riiK'd,  as  well  as  Lutheran,  tlicolo^iaiis.  But  the  fnundation  on 
which  thi'y  subsequently  buih — though  somewhat  onesidedly — is  here. 
We  caniuit  infer  niucli  from  such  expressions  as  'from  God',  "came  from 
God",  'tlowed  from  God'.  Just  as  in  Zwingli,  these  expressions  were 
sometimes  in  Calvin's  synonyms  of  'true.'  Thus,  at  Titus  ii.  12,  he  says 
he  cannot  imderstand  why  so  many  are  unwilling  to  draw  upon  profane 
writers. — 'for,  since  all  truth  is  from  God  (ij  Deo),  if  anything  has 
been  said  well  and  truly  by  profane  men,  it  ought  not  to  be  rejected, 
for  it  has  come  from  God  (<i  Deo  est  fofeetum)'.  More  significant  are 
such  expressions  as,  'nothing  human  is  mixed  with  Scripture',  "we 
owe  to  them  the  same  reverence  as  to  God',  God  'is  the  author  o{ 
Scripture'  and  as  such  has  'dictated'  (dictavit)  all  that  the  Apostles 
and  Prophets  have  written,  so  that  we  must  not  depart  from  the  word 
of  God  in  even  the  smallest  particular',  etc.  All  this  applies  not  only 
to  the  Scriptures  as  a  whole,  not  merely  to  their  fundamental  ideas 
and  chief  contents,  but  to  all  the  sixty-six  books  severally.  In  contra- 
distinction from  the  Apocrypha,  they  have  been  given  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
{Piefiue  mise  en  tete  des  Ikres  apucryphcs  de  rAiicien  Test.:  Corp. 
Reff.  ix.  827).  The  book  of  Acts  'beyond  question  is  the  product  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  Himself,  Mark  'wrote  nothing  but  what  the  Holy  Spirit 
gave  him  to  write',  etc.  To  think  here  merely  of  a  providential  direc- 
tion by  God,  in  the  sense  that  Gci  took  care  that  His  people  should 
lack  nothing  of  a  Scriptural  record  o.'  His  revelation — is  impossible. 
For,  however  often  Calvin  may  have  directed  attention  to  such  a 
"singularis  providentiae  cura'  (Inst,  V.  vi.  2,  cf.  I.  viii.  10;  Argument 
in  J  oh. )  with  respect  to  Scripture,  he  yet  saw  something  over  and  above 
this  in  the  production  of  the  sacred  books.  He  looked  upon  them  as 
the  writings  of  God  Himself,  who,  through  an  extraordinary  operation 
of  His  Spirit,  guarded  His  amanuenses  from  all  error  as  well  when  they 
transmitted  histories  as  when  they  propounded  the  doctrine  of  Christ. 
Thus  to  him  Scripture  (naturally  in  its  original  text)  was  a  complete 
work  of  God,  to  which  nothing  could  be  added  and  from  which  nothing 
could  be  taken  away." 

"  In  I.  vi.  14  Calvin  says  that  the  Apostle  in  Heb.  xi.  3,  'By  faith  we 
understand  that  the  worlds  were  framed  by  the  Word  of  God'  wishes 
to  intimate  that  "the  invisible  divinity  zkvs  represented  indeed  by  such 
displays  of  His  power,  but  that  we  have  no  eyes  to  perceive  it  unless 
they  are  illuminated  through  faith  by  the  inner  revelation  of  God" 
( Invisibilem  divinitatem  representari  quidem  talibus  spectaculis,  sed  ad 
earn  perspiciendam  non  esse  nobis  oculos,  nisi  interiore  Dei  revelatione 
per  tidem  illuminatur).  Here  he  distinguishes  between  the  external, 
objective    representation,   and   the   internal    subjective    preparation    to 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      239 


perceive  this  representation.  God  is  objectively  revealed  in  His  works : 
man  in  his  sins  is  blind  to  this  revelation :  the  interior  operation  of 
God  is  an  opening  of  man's  eyes :  man  then  sees.  The  operation  of 
God  is  therefore  a  palingenesis.  This  passage  is  already  in  ed.  1539 
(I.  291 )  ;  the  last  clause  ( nisi  ...  )  is  not,  however,  reproduced 
in  the  French  versions  of  either  is^r  or  1560  (III.  60). 

"In  his  response  to  the  Augsburg  Interim  {i'era  Ecclesinc  rcfor- 
nuntditc  ratio,  1548)  he  allows  it  to  be  the  froprium  ecclcsiac  officium 
to  scrifturas  veras  a  suf<l'o:,itis  disccnicrc;  but  only  that  obcdieiitcr 
aniplcctitur,  quicquid  Dei  est,  as  the  sheep  hear  the  voice  of  the  shep- 
herd. It  is  nevertheless  sacrilegii  iinpietas  ecelesiae  judicio  submitterc 
sacrasancta  Dei  onieula.  See  J.  Cramer,  as  cited,  p.  104.  note  3. 
Cramer  remarks  in  expounding  Calvin's  view:  "By  the  approbation 
she  gives  to  them" — the  books  of  Scripture — "the  Church  does  not  make 
them  authentic,  but  only  yields  her  homage  to  the  truth  of  God." 

"  It  would  require  that  we  should  be  wholly  hardened  (nisi  ad  perdi- 
tam  impudentiam  obduruerint)  that  we  should  not  perceive  that  the 
doctrine  of  Scripture  is  heavenly,  that  we  should  not  have  the  confes- 
sion wrung  from  us  that  there  are  manifest  signs  in  Scripture  that  it 
is  God  who  speaks  in  and  through  it  (extorquebitur  illis  haec  confessio, 
manife.sta  signa  loquentis  Dei  conspici  in  Scriptura  ex  quibus  pateat 
coelestem  esie  ejus  doctrinam) — I.  vii.  4. 

"The  exact  relations  of  the  "proofs"  to  the  divinity  of  Scripture, 
which  Calvin  teaches,  was  sufficiently  clear  to  be  caught  by  his  suc- 
cessors. It  is  admirably  stated  in  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 
I.  V.  And  we  may  add  that  the  same  conception  is  stated  also  very 
precisely  by  Quenstedt:  "These  motives,  as  well  internal  as  external, 
by  which  we  are  led  to  the  knowledge  of  the  authority  of  Scripture, 
make  the  theopneusty  of  Sacred  Scripture  probable,  and  produce  a 
certitude  which  is  not  merely  conjectural  but  moral :  they  do  not  make 
the  divinity  of  Scripture  infallible  and  altogether  indubitable."  That 
is  to  say,  they  are  not  of  the  nature  of  demonstration,  but  nevertheless 
give  moral  certitude:  the  testinony  of  the  Spirit  is  equivalent  to 
demonstration,—  as  is  the  deliverat.ee  of  any  simply  acting  sense. 

°°Cf.  Pannier,  as  cited,  pp.  257-8:  'We  see  that  this  understanding 
of  the  Scriptures,  this  capacity  to  receive  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit, 
is  not,  according  to  Calvin,  possible  for  all ;  and  that,  less  and  less  .  .  . 
He  continually  emphasizes  more  and  more  the  incapacity  of  man  to 
persuade  another  of  it,  without  the  aid  of  God;  but  he  emphasises  still 
more  progressively  the  impossibility  of  obtaining  this  aid  if  God  does 
not  accord  it  first.  155.  (I.  viii,  at  end):  'Those  who  wish  to  prove 
to  unbelievers  by  arguments  that  the  Scriptures  are  from  God  are 


>40 


BENJAMIN  B.   VVARKIELD 


incimsirliratc;  fcr  this  is  known  only  to  faith.'  1559  (I.  vii.  ih  fine): 
The  mysteries  of  God  are  not  understood,  except  by  those  to  whom  it 
is  iiizcii  ...  It  is  quite  cert.'iin  that  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  does 
not  make  itself  feU  except  to  believers,  and  is  not  in  itself  an  apologetic 
means  with  respect  to  unbelievers  .  .  .  The  natunil  man  recciveth 
not  spiritual  things." 

"  C/.  Pannier,  as  cited,  pp.  195-6:  "First  let  us  recall  this. — for 
Calvin  this  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  only  one  act  of  the  great 
drama  which  is  enacted  in  the  entire  soul  of  the  religious  man,  and  in 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  ho!<ls  always  the  principal  role.  While  the  later 
dogmatists  make  the  Holy  Spirit,  so  to  speak,  function  mechanically, 
at  a  given  moment,  in  the  pen  of  the  prophets  or  in  the  brain  of  the 
readers,  Calvin  sees  the  Holy  Spirit  constantly  active  in  the  man 
whom  He  wishes  to  sanctifv  and  the  fact  that  He  leads  him  to 
recognize  llie  divinity  and  tlu  ^anonicity  of  the  sacred  books  is  only 
one  manifestation, — a  very  important  one,  no  doubt,  hut  only  a  par- 
ticular nnc. — (if  His  general  work."  It  is  only,  of  course,  the  Lutheran 
and  Rationalizing  ilogmatists  who,  constructively,  subject  the  action  of 
the  Spirit  to  the  direction  of  man — whether  by  making  it  rest  on  the 
applicaiinii  of  the  "means  of  grace"  or  on  the  action  of  the  human  will. 
Calvin  and  his  followers — the  Refoimed — make  the  act  of  man  depend 
on  the  free  and  sovereign  action  of  the'  Spirit. 

■'■'J.  Cramer,  as  cited,  pp.  122-3.  somewhat  understates  this,  but  in  the 
main  catches  Calvin's  meaning:  "Calvin  docs  not,  it  is  true,  tell  us  in 
so  many  words  precisely  what  this  testimonium  sf.  s.  is,  but  it  is 
easy  to  gather  it  from  the  whole  discussion.  He  is  thinking  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who.  as  the  Spirit  of  our  adoption  as  children,  leads  us  to  say 
Amen  to  the  Word  which  the  Father  speaks  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  to 
His  children.  He  even  says  expressly  in  Inst.  I.  vii.  4:  'As  if  the 
Spirit  was  not  called  "seal"  and  "earnest"  just  because  He  confers 
faith  on  the  pious.'  But  more  plainly  still,  and  indeed  so  that  no  doubt 
can  remain,  we  find  it  in  Beza,  the  most  beloved  and  talented  pupil  of 
Calvin,  who  assuredly  also  in  his  conception  of  Scripture  was  the  most 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  his  teacher.  In  his  reply  to 
Castellion.  Beza  says:  'The  testimony  of  the  Spirit  of  adoption  does 
not  lie  properly  in  tliis,  that  we  believe  to  be  true  what  the  Scriptures 
testify  (for  this  is  known  also  to  the  devils  and  to  many  of  the  lost), 
but  rather  in  this, — that  each  applies  to  himself  the  promise  of  salva- 
tion in  Christ  of  which  Paul  speaks  in  Rom.  viii.  15,  16.'  Accordingly  a 
few  lines  further  down  he  speaks  of  a  "testimony  of  adoption  and  free 
justification  in  Christ.'  In  the  essence  of  the  matter  Calvin  will  have 
meant  just  this  by  his  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit."    .    .    .    Beza's 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    241 


words  are  in  his  Ad  defensionts  et  rtprehensiones  Seb.  CasUllionis 
(Th.  Besac  Vezclii  Opera,  i,  Geneva,  1582,  p.  503):  Testimonium 
Spiritus  adoptionis  ncn  in  co  proprie  positum  est  ut  credamus  verum 
esse  quod  Scriptura  testatur  (nam  hoc  ipsum  quoque  sciunt  diaboli  et 
reprobi  multi),  sed  in  eo  potius  ut  quisque  sibi  salutis  in  Christo 
promissioncm  applicct,  de  qua  re  agit  Paulus,  Rom.  viii.  15,  16.  .  .  . 
That  it  was  generally  understood  in  the  first  age  that  this  was  the 
precise  nature  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  is  shown  by  its  definition 
in  this  sense  not  only  by  the  Reformed,  but  by  the  Lutherans.  For 
example,  Hollaz  defines  thus :  "The  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
supernatural  act  (actus  supematuralis)  of  the  Holy  Spirit  by  means 
of  the  Word  of  God  attentively  read  or  heard  (His  own  divine  power 
having  been  communicated  to  the  Scriptures)  by  which  the  heart  of 
man  is  moved,  opened,  illuminated,  turned  to  the  obedience  of  faith,  so 
that  the  illuminated  man  out  of  these  internal  spiritual  movements 
truly  perceives  the  Word  which  is  propounded  to  him  to  have  proceeded 
from  (Jod,  and  gives  it  therefore  his  unwavering  assent."  The  Luther- 
anism  of  this  definition  resides  in  the  clauses :  "By  means  of  the  Word 
of  God"  .  .  .  "His  own  divine  power  having  been  communicated  to 
the  Scriptures"  .  .  .  which  make  the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to 
be  from  out  of  the  Word,  in  which  He  dwells  intrinsictu.  But  the 
nature  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  purely  conceived  as  an  act  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  by  which  the  heart  of  man  is  renewed  to  spiritual 
perception,  in  the  employment  of  which  he  perceives  the  divine  quality 
of  Scripture. 

"Supra  humanum  judicium,  certo  certius  constituimus  (non  secus 
ac  si  ipsius  Dei  numen  illic  intueremur)  hominum  ministerio,  ab  ipsis- 
simo  Dei  ore  ad  nos  fluxisse  (I.  vii.  5). 

"Talis  ergo  est  persuasio  quae  rationes  non  requirat;  talis  notitia, 
cui  optima  ratio  constet:  nempe  in  qua  securius  constantiusque  mens 
quicscit  quam  in  uUis  rationibus;  talis  denique  scnsus,  qui  nisi  ex 
coelesti  revelatione  nasci  nequeat  (I.  vii.  s). 

"Kostlin,  as  cited,  p.  412-13,  esp.  413,  note  a,  adverts  to  this  with 
a  reference  to  Dorner,  Gesch,  d.  protest.  Theologie,  379,  who  makes  it 
characteristic  of  Calvin  in  distinction  from  Zwingli  to  draw  the  outer 
and  inner  Word  more  closely  together.  The  justice  of  Domer's  view, 
which  would  seem  to  assign  to  (Talvin  in  his  doctrine  of  the  Word  as 
a  means  of  grace  a  position  somewhere  between  Zwingli  and  Luther, 
may  well  be  doubted.  According  to  Dorner,  Calvin  "modified  the  looser 
connection  between  the  outward  and  inward  Word  held  by  Zwingli 
and  connected  the  two  sides  more  closely  together."  "In  reference, 
therefore,  to  the  principle  of  the  Reformation",  he  continues,  "with  its 

W 


Z^J 


BENJAMIN    B.    VVARFIELD 


two  sides,  Calvin  is  still  more  than  Zwingti,  of  one  mind  and  spirit  with 
the  Lutheran  Reformation  "  (E.  T.,  i,  p.  .387).  Again  (1.  390):  "The 
double  form  of  the  yerbum  Dei  externum  and  internum,  held  by 
Zwingli,  gives  place  indeed  in  Calvin  to  a  more  inward  connecting  of 
the  two  sides;  the  Scriptures  are  according  to  him  not  merely  the 
sign  of  an  absent  thing,  but  have  in  themselves  divine  matter  and 
breath,  which  makes  itself  actively  felt."  We  do  not  find  that  Calvin 
and  Zwingli  differ  in  this  matter  appreciably 

"Cf.  his  response  to  Sadolet  (1539),  Op.  V.  393:  tuo  igitur  experi- 
nicnto  disce  non  minus  importunutn  esse  spiritum  jactare  sine  verbo, 
quam  futurum  sit.  sine  verbum  ipsum  obtendere. 

"  There  is  a  certain  misapprehension  involved,  also,  in  speaking  of 
Calvin  subordinating  the  indicia  to  the  witness  of  the  Spirit,  as  if  he 
conceived  them  on  the  same  plane,  but  occupying  relatively  lower  and 
higher  positions  on  this  plane.  The  witnr'^s  of  the  Spirit  and  the 
indicia  move  in  different  orbits.  We  find  Ki  ilin,  as  cited,  413,  accord- 
ingly speaking  not  quite  to  the  point,  when  he  says:  "He  subordinated 
to  the  power  of  this  one,  immediate,  divine  testimony,  all  those  several 
criteria  by  the  pious  and  thoughful  consideration  of  which  our  faith 
in  the  Scriptures  and  their  contents  may  and  should  he  further  medi- 
ated. Even  miracles,  as  Niedner  has  rightly  remarked  i  Philosophie- 
und  Theologicgeschichte,  341,  note  2),  take  among  the  evidences  for  the 
divinity  of  the  Biblical  revelation,  'nothing  more  than  a  coordinate' 
place:  we  add  in  passing  that  Calvin  introduces  them  here  only  in 
the  edition  of  1550,  and  then  enlarges  the  section  which  treats  of  them 
in  the  edition  of  1559.  He  does  not,  however,  put  a  low  estimate  on 
such  criteria ;  he  would  trust  himself — as  he  says  in  an  addition  made  in 
the  edition  of  1559  (xxx.  59) — to  silence  with  them  even  stiflF-necked 
opponents ;  but  this  certainty  which  faith  should  have,  can  never  be 
attained,  says  he,  by  disputation,  but  can  be  wrought  only  by  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit."  The  question  between  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit 
and  the  indicia  is  not  a  question  of  which  gives  the  strongest  evidence ; 
it  is  a  question  of  what  each  is  fitted  to  do.  The  indicia  are  supreme 
in  their  sphere:  they  and  they  alone  gfive  objective  evidence.  But 
objective  evidence  is  inoperative  when  the  subjective  condition  is  such 
that  it  eannot  penetrate  and  alTcct  the  mind.  All  objective  evidence 
is  in  this  sense  subordinate  to  the  subjective  change  wrought  by  the 
Spirit:  but  considered  as  objective  evidence  it  is  supreme  in  its  own 
sphere.  The  term  "subordinate"  is  accordingly  misleading  here.  For 
the  rest,  it  is  true  that  Calvin  places  the  miracles  by  which  the  giving 
of  Scripture  was  accompanied  rather  among  the  objective  evidences  of 
their  divinity  than  at  their  apex:   but  this  is  due  not  to  an  underesti- 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    J43 


mation  of  the  value  of  miracles  as  evidence,  but  to  the  very  high  esti- 
mate he  placed  on  the  internal  criteria  of  divinity,  by  which  the  Script- 
ures evidence  themselves  to  be  divine.  And  above  all  \vt  must  not  be 
misled  into  supposing  that  he  places  miracles  below  the  testimony  of 
the  Spirit  in  importance.  Such  a  comparison  is  outside  his  argument: 
miracles  arc  part  of  the  chjcctivc  evidence  of  the  divinity  of  Scripture; 
the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  is  the  subjective  preparation  of  the  heart 
to  receivt  the  objective  evidence  in  a  sympathetic  embrace.  He  would 
have  said,  oi  course,— he  does  say,— that  no  miracle,  and  no  body  of 
miracles,  could  or  can  produce  "true  faith":  the  internal  creative 
operation  of  the  Spirit  is  necessary  for  that.  And  in  that  sense  the 
evidence  of  miracles  is  subordinated  to  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit. 
But  this  is  not  because  of  any  depreciation  of  the  evidential  value  of 
miracles;  but  because  of  the  full  appreciation  of  the  deadness  of  the 
human  soul  in  sin.  The  evidential  value  of  mir.ncles,  and  their  place 
among  the  rbjective  evidences  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures, 
are  wholly  unaffected  by  the  doctrine  ci  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit; 
and  the  strongest  assertions  of  their  valuclcssness  in  the  production  of 
faith,  apart  from  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  do  not  in  the  least  affect 
the  estimate  we  put  on  them  as  objective  evidences. 

"Cf.  Kostlin,  as  cited,  pp.  413-14:  "We  find  in  Calvin  the  afore- 
mentioned several  criteria  set  alongside  of  this  witness  of  the  Spirit, 
and  indeed  especially  those  which  are  internal  to  the  Scriptures  them- 
selves, such  as  tlicir  elevation  above  all  merely  human  products,  which 
cannot  fail  to  impress  every  reader,  etc.  It  would  certainly  be  desirable 
to  trace  an  inner  connection  between  this  impression  made  by  the 
character,  by  the  style  of  speech,  by  the  contents  of  Scripture,  and  that 
supreme  immediate  testimony  of  the  Spirit  for  it.  Assuredly  God 
Himself,  the  Author  of  Scripture,  works  upon  us  also  in  such  impres- 
sions, which  we  analyse  in  our  reflecting  human  consideration,  and  in 
our  debates  strive  to  set  before  opponents :  and  we  feel,  on  the  other 
side,  a  n-  ed  to  analyse,  as  far  as  is  possible  for  us,  even  the  supreme 
witness  of  the  Spirit,  in  spite  of  its  immediacy,  and  to  relate  it  with 
our  other  experiences  and  observations  with  respect  to  Scripture,  so  as 
to  become  conscious  of  the  course  by  which  God  passes  from  one  to 
the  other.  Calvin,  however,  does  not  enter  into  this;  he  sets  the  two 
side  by  side  and  over  against  one  another:  'Although  (Scripture) 
conciliates  reverence  to  itself  by  its  own  supreme  majesty,  it  does  not 
seriously  affect  us,  until  it  is  sealed  to  our  hearts  by  the  Spirit'  (xxix. 

295 ;  ^^^-  ^ ;  ^^-  3-  ^-  7-  5^  •  ***  *'°"  ""'  *''°^  ^'^  '""^"^  relation  of 
one'to  the  other.  He  does  not  do  this  even  in  the  edition  of  1559,  where 
he  with  great  eloquence  speaks  more  fully  of  the  power  with  which  the 


244 


BENJAMIN    B.    WAKFIELD 


Word  of  the  New  Testament  witnesses  manifests  its  divine  majesty. 
The  witness  of  the  Spirit  com»s  forward  with  Calvin  thus  somewhat 
abruptly.  By  means  of  it  the  Spirit  works  true  faitli,  which  the 
Scripture,  even  through  its  internal  criteria,  cannot  establish  in  divine 
certainty;  and  indeed  He  docs  not  work  it  in  the  case  of  all  thixf— and 
has  no  intention  of  working  it  in  the  case  of  all  those— to  whom  the 
Scripture  is  conveyed  with  its  criteria,  but,  as  the  section  on  Predesti- 
nation further  shows,  only  in  the  case  of  those  who  have  been  elected 
thereto  from  all  eternity.  Here  we  are  already  passing  over  mto  the 
relation  of  the  Calvinistic  conception  of  the  Formal  Principle  or  the 
Authority  of  Scripture,  to  its  conception  of  the  means  of  grace.  In 
this  matter  the  Lutheran  doctrine  stands  in  conflict  with  it.  Hir  with 
reference  to  what  we  have  been  discussing,  we  do  not  find  tliat  the 
Lutheran  dogmaticians,  when  they  come  to  occupy  themselves  more 
particularly  with  the  testimonium  Sfiritus  Sancli  to  the  Scriptures, 
dealt  more  vitally  with  its  relation  to  the  operation  of  these  criteria 
on  the  human  spirit.  No  doubt,  in  Luther's  own  conception  this  was 
more  the  case:  but  he  gave  no  scientific  elaboration  of  it.  " 

"C/.  Kostlin,  as  cited,  p.  417:  "The  certainty  that  the  Scriptures 
really  possess  such  authority,  rests  for  us  not  on  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  but  just  on  this  testimony  of  the  Spirit.  Calvin's  reference  here 
is  even  to  the  several  books  of  Scripture:  he  is  aware  that  the  oppo- 
nents ask  how,  without  a  decree  of  the  Church,  we  are  to  be  convinced 
what  book  should  be  received  with  reverence,  what  should  be  excluded 
from  the  canon;  he  himself  adduces  in  opposition  to  this,  even  here, 
nothing  else  except  the  testimonium  Sf>iritus:  the  entirety  of  Scripture 
seems  to  him  to  be  equally,  so  to  say,  en  bloc,  divinely  legitimated  by 
this."  So  also  Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  252:  "The  question  of  cannnicity 
never  presented  itself  to  the  thought  of  Calvin,  except  in  the  second 
place  as  a  corollary  of  the  problem  of  the  divinity  (L  vii.  l).  If  the 
Holy  Spirit  attests  to  us  that  a  given  book  is  divine.  He  in  that  very 
act  attests  that  it  forms  a  part  of  the  rule  of  faith,  that  it  is  canonical. 
Nowhere  has  Calvin  permitted,  as  his  successors  have  done,  a  primary 
place  to  be  taken  by  a  theological  doctrine  which  became  less  capable 
of  resisting  the  assaults  of  adversaries  when  isolated  from  the  practical 
question.  Perhaps,  moreover,  he  did  not  render  as  exact  an  account 
as  we  are  able  to  render  after  the  lapse  of  two  centuries,  of  the  wholly 
new  situation  in  which  the  Reformation  found  itself  with  respect  to  the 
canon,  or  of  the  new  way  in  which  he  personally  resolved  the  question." 
Accordingly,  at  an  earlier  point  Pannier  says :  "It  is  true  that  the  faculty 
of  recognizing  the  Word  of  God  unaer  the  human  forms  included  for 
Calvin,  and  especially  according  to  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  1559,  the 


CALVIN'S   DOCTKINK   t)l-    THE    kNOWLEDGK.    UK   GOD      _'45 

faculty  of  (IctirniiniiiK  tlic  cationicity  of  the  books.  This  is  a  conse- 
quence secondary  but  natural,  and  -^i  long  as  they  maintained  the 
principle,  the  Reformed  doctors  placed  themselves  in  a  false  position 
when  they  hh.wed  themselves  disposed  to  abandon  the  consequences  to 
the  criticisms  of  their  opponents"  (p.  164))-  Cf.  J.  Cramer,  Nseuwt 
Dijdragcn.  '11.  140:  'Mm  you  must  not  think  of  an  imincduitc  witness 
of  the  Spirit  to  the  particular  parts  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  old 
thtoloi;,ans  did  not  think  of  that.  They  conceived  the  matter  thus: 
The  U-stimunium  Sftntus  S.incti  gives  witness  directly  to  the  rrligio- 
moral  contents  of  Scripture  only.  Since,  however,  the  religio-moral 
contents  must  necessarily  have  a  particular  form,  and  the  dogmatic 
content  is  closely  bound  up  with  the  historical,  neither  the  chronological 
nor  the  topographical  element  can  be  separated  out,  etc.  .  .  .  there- 
fore the  testimonium  ^firitus  Sancli  gives  to  the  total  content  of 
Scripture  witness  that  it  is  from  God."  This,  after  all,  then,  is  not  to 
appeal  to  the  testimonium  Sl>>iitus  Sancti,  directly  to  authenticate  the 
canon ;  but  to  construct  a  canon  on  the  basis  of  a  testimony  of  the  Spirit 
given  solely  to  the  divinity  of  Scripture,  the  movement  of  thought  being 
this:  All  Scripture  given  by  inspiration  of  God  is  profitable;  this 
Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God;  accordingly  this  Scripture 
belonps  to  the  category  of  profitable  Scripture,  that  is  to  the  canon. 

"Reuss,  in  the  i6th  chapter  of  his  Hulory  of  the  Canon  of  the  Holy 
Scri/'tures  (E.  T.  1884),  expounds  Calvin,  with  his  usual  learning  and 
persuasiveness,  as  basing  the  determination  of  the  canon  solely  on  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit.  But  the  exposition  falls  into  two  confusions: 
a  confusion  of  the  authority  of  Scripture  with  its  canonicity,  and  a 
confusion  of  the  divine  with  the  apostolic  origin  of  Scripture.  Of 
course.  Calvin  repelled  the  Romish  conception  that  the  authority  of 
Scripture  rests  on  its  authentication  by  the  Church  and  its  tradition 
(p.  294),  but  that  did  not  deter  him  from  seeking  by  a  historical  inves- 
tigation to  discover  what  especial  books  had  been  committed  by  the 
apostles  to  the  Church  as  authoritative.  Of  course,  he  founded  the 
sure  conviction  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures  on  the  witness  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  by  and  with  them  in  the  heart,  but  that  did  not 
prevent  his  appealing  to  history  to  determine  what  these  Scriptures 
which  were  so  witnessed  were  in  their  compass.  Accordingly  even 
Reuss  has  to  admit  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  carry  through  his 
theory  of  Calvin's  theoretical  procedure  consistently  with  Calvin's  ob- 
served practice.  In  point  o  fact,  the  Reformers,  and  Calvin  among  them, 
did  not  separate  the  Apoc  ypha  from  the  O.  T.  on  the  sole  basis  of  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit:  they  appealed  to  the  evidence  of  the  Jewish 
Church   (p.  312).     Nor   did  they  determine  the  question  of  the  New 


M'' 


liKXJAMlX    n.    WARFIELD 


Ti-^'anu-nt  nntilo;;  nHpa  rii  this  principl- :  this,  tio,  \v:i5  with  thcni  "a 
simple  question  of  historical  criticism"  (p.  316) — although  Rcuss  here 
(p.  .^18)  confuses  Calvin's  appeal  to  the  internal  evidence  of  apostolicity 
with  appeal  to  "religious  intuition".  In  a  word,  Reuss'  exposition  of 
Calvin's  procedure  in  determining  the  canon  rests  on  a  fundamental 
misconception  of  that  procedure. 

"".Ml  this  Holy  ."scripture  is  comprised  in  the  canonical  books  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments,  the  number  (Ic  nombre)  of  which  is  as 
follows"    .    .    .    the  list  ensuing. 

"  Of-t.  ix.  t^rchi..  pp.  Ivii-l.x :  cf.  Dieterlen.  Lc  Syiodc  general  dc  Paris 
(i!^7.^).  PP-  r".  89:  Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  127;  and  for  a  brief  precis, 
MiilU-r,  Hrkciiiiliiissihriftcn  dc   reform.  Kirchc  (1903),  p.  xx.xiii. 

"  O/./..  ix.  741- 

"Aclcs  de  la  disttite  et  conference  teiiue  d  Paris  cs  mois  de  juillet  el 
aoiist  1566  (Strasbourg,  1566),  printed  in  the  Bthlioth.  de  la  Soc.  de 
I'Hist.  du  Prot.  franc.  We  draw  from  the  account  of  it  in  Pannier,  as 
cited,  pp.  141  sq. 

"Lr  t/'.!V  sysleme  de  I'Eglisc  ct  la  reritahle  analyse  de  la  foy,  III. 
ii.  450.     (Pannier,  p.  168). 

"As  we  have  seen,  it  is  attributed  to  Calvin  by  both  Pannier  and 
Cramer.  Pannier  (203)  remarks  that  "if  Calvin  was  not  able  to 
appreciate  in  all  its  purity"  the  new  situation  with  regard  to  the 
canon  into  which  the  Reformation  brought  men,  "it  was  even  less 
incumbent  on  him  to  render  account  of  the  personal  attitude  which  he 
himself  took  up  with  reference  to  it".  "It  is  his  successors  only  who, 
in  adopting  his  conclusions  (except  that  they  apply  them  more  or  less), 
have  asked  themselves  how  they  reached  them,  and  have  reconstructed 
the  reasoning  which  no  doubt  Calvin  himself  had  unconsciously  fol- 
lowed." Is  not  this  a  confession  that  after  all  the  view  in  question  was 
not  Calvin's  own  view?  At  least  not  consciously  to  himself?  But 
Pannier  would  say,  no  doubt,  either  this  was  Calvin's  view  or  he 
appealed  to  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  directly  to  authenticate  the 
canon. 

"  The  following  is  the  account  of  the  treatment  of  the  question  of  the 
canon  in  these  creeds,  given  by  J.  Cramer  (Dr  Roiimsch-Kathnlickc  en 
de  Oud-protestantsche  Sehrifhheschoun'inp.  1883,  pp.  48  sq.>  :  ".\nd  on 
what  now.  does  that  authority  rest?  This  question,  too,  is  amplv  dis- 
cussed in  the  Reformed  Confessions,  and  that,  as  concerns  the  principal 
matter,  wholly  in  the  spirit  of  Calvin.  Only,  more  value  is  ascribed  to 
the  testimony  of  tlv  Church.  \o  doubt  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures 
is  not  made  to  rest  on  it;  but  it  is  permitted  an  important  voice  in  the 
question  of  the  canon.     When  it  is  said  that  'all  that  is  said  in  the 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    247 

Holy  Scriptures'  is  to  be  believed  not  so  much  because  the  Church 
receives  them  and  holds  them  a?  canonical,  but  especially  because  the 
Holy  Spirit  bears  witness  to  them  in  our  heart  that  they  are  from  God', 
a  certain  weight  is  attributed  to  the  judgment  of  the  church.     This 
appears  particularly  from  the  way  in  which  the  canonical  books  are 
spoken  of  in  distinction  from  the  Apocryphal  books.    In  enumeratmg 
the  Bible  books,  the  Belgian  Confession  prefixes  the  words:    'Agamst 
which  nothing  can  be  said'  (art.  IV).     By  this  apparently  is  meant, 
that  against  the  canonicity  of  these  books,  from  a  historical  standpomt. 
with  the  eye  on  the  witness  of  the  Church,  nothing  can  be  alleged  (a 
thing  not  to  be  said  of  the  Apocrypha).  In  the  same  spirit  the  Angh- 
can  Articles,  when  speaking  of  the  books  of  the  O.  and  N.  Testaments, 
says  that  'Of  their  authority  there  has  never  been  any  doubt  in  the 
Church'.    1  will  not  raise  the  question  here  how  that  can  be  affirmed 
with  the  eye  on  the  Antilegomena.     It  shows,  however,  certainly  that 
much  importance  is  attached  to  the  ecclesiastical  tradition.    The  funda- 
mental ground,  however,  why  the  Scriptures  of  the  O.  and  N.  Testa- 
ments are  to  be  held  to  be  the  Word  of  God  is  sought  in  the  Scriptures 
themselves,  and,  assuredly,  in  the  testimony  which  the  Holy   Spmt 
bears  to  their  divinity  in  the  hearts  of  believers.    Like  Calvin,  the  Con- 
fessions suppose  that  thus  they  have  given  an  immovable  foundation  to 
the  divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  and  have  taken  an  impregnable 
position   over  against   Ro-        which   appealed  to  the  witness  of  the 
Catholic  Church."    ...       alvin,  however,  allowed  as  much  to  the 
testimony  of  the  Church— external  evidence— as  is  here  allowed,  and 
the  very  adduction  of  its  testimony  shows     lat  sole  dependence  was  not 
placed  on  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  for  the  canonicity  of  a  book :  what 
it  is  appealed  to  for  is  the  divinity  of  the  canonical  books. 

•So  even  Kostlin  perceives,  as  cited,  p.  417:  "The  entirety  of 
Scripture  appeared  to  him  divinely  legitimated  by  the  testimonmm 
Spiritus,  altogether,  so  to  say,  en  bloc.  ...  The  declarations  of 
Calvin  as  to  the  Word  spoken  by  the  prophets  and  apostles,  which  they 
rightly  asserted  to  be  God's  Word,  pass  without  hesitation  over  into 
declarations  as  to  the  Ho!v  Scriptures,  as  such,  and  that  in  their  entirety ; 
with  the  proposition  'the  Law  and  the  Prophets  and  the  Gospel  have 
emanated  from  God'  is  interchanged  the  proposition  'the  Scripture  is 
from  God'.-and  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  assures  us  of  it."  So  also 
Pannier  (II.  203):  "Everything  goes  back  to  his  considering  things 
not  in  detail  but  en  bloc.  The  word  of  God  is  for  him  one,  verbum  Da, 
not  verba  Dei.  The  diversity  of  the  authors  disappears  before  the  unity 
of  the  Spirit.  The  same  reasoning  applies  to  each  single  book  as  to  the 
whole  collection.    All  the  verses  hold  together:  and  if  one  introduces 


J48 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


us  to  the  knowledge  of  salvation  we  may  conclude  that  the  book  is 
canonical.  Given  the  collection,  it  is  enough  in  practice,  since  all  the 
parts  are  of  a  sort,  to  establish  the  value  of  one  of  them  to  gaarantee 
the  value  of  all  the  others.  It  is  certain  that  the  critical  theologian 
and  the  simpk  believer  even  yet  proceed  somewhat  differently  in  this 
matter:  the  simplest  and  surest  method  is  that  of  the  humble  saint,  and 
Calvin  was  very  right  not  to  range  himself  among  the  theologians  at 
this  point.  'The  just  shall  live  by  faith.'  This  affirmation  seemed  to 
him  a  revealed  truth:  he  concluded  from  it  that  the  whole  epistle  to 
the  Romans  is  inspired;  some  remarks  of  this  kind  in  other  passages 
of  the  Epistles,  of  the  Gospels,  and  the  canonicity  of  the  New  Testament 
is  established.  The  same  for  the  Old  Testament.  The  Second  Epistle 
of  Peter  and  the  Song  of  Songs.  The  human  testimonies,  internal  and 
external  criteria,  useful  for  confirming  the  other  parts  of  a  book  of 
which  a  passage  has  been  recngnized  as  inspired,  are  insufficient  to 
expel  from  the  canon  a  book  which  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  has  not 
recognized  as  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  salvation."  We  quote  the 
whole  passage  to  give  Pannier's  whole  thought :  but  what  we  adduce  it 
for  is  at  present  merely  to  signalize  the  admission  it  contains  that  Calvin 
dealt  with  the  Scriptures  in  the  matter  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit, 
so  to  speak,  "in  the  lump"— as  a  whole.  Pannier  cites  apparently  as 
similar  to  Calvin's  view,  Gaussen,  Cawon,  ii.  lo:  "This  testimony,  which 
every  Christian  has  recognized  when  he  has  read  his  Bible  with  vital 
efficacy,  may  be  recognized  by  him  only  in  a  single  page ;  but  this  page 
is  enough  to  spread  over  the  book  which  contains  it  an  incomparable 
brightness."  That  is,  Calvin,  like  the  simple  believer,  has  a  definite 
book— the  Bible— in  his  hands  and  treats  it  as  all  of  a  piece— of  course, 
in  Calvin's  case,  not  without  reasonable  grounds  for  treating  it  as  all 
of  a  piece :  in  other  words,  the  canon  was  already  determined  for  him 
before  he  appealed  to  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  attest  its  divinity. 
Cf.  Cramer,  p.  140,  as  quoted  above.  Cramer  is  quite  right  so  far, 
therefore,  when  he  says  (p.  156) :  "Although  we  determine  securely 
by  means  of  the  historical-critical  method  what  must  be  carried  back 
to  the  apostolical  age  and  what  accords  with  the  apostolical  doctrine, 
we  have  not  yet  proved  the  divine  authority  of  these  writings.  This 
hangs  on  this,  — whether  the  Holy  Spirit  gives  us  His  witness  to 
them.  On  this  witness  alone  rests  our  assurance  of  faith,  not  on  the 
force  of  a  historical-critical  demonstration."  This,  so  far  as  appears, 
was  Calvin's  method. 

"Calvin  would  certainly  have  subscribed  to  these  words  of  Pannier, 
as  cited,  p.  164:  The  most  of  the  Catholics  "have  always  strangely 
misapprehended  the  illumination  which,  according  to  the  Reformed,  the 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god    249 

least  of  believers  is  capable  of  receiving  and  of  applying  to  the  reading 
of  the  Bible.  It  is  a  question,  not  as  they  suppose,  of  becoming  theo- 
logians, but  of  becoming  believers,  of  having  not  the  plentitude  of 
knowledge,  but  the  certitude  of  faith". 

^'Cf.  Kostlin,  as  cited,  p.  415.— After  raising  the  question  of  the 
relation  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  to  the  inner  experience  of  the 
Christian,  and  the  relative  priority  of  the  two,— and  remarking  that  in 
case  the   vital  process   is  conceived  as  preceding  the  witness  of  the 
Spirit  to  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures,  it  will  be  hard  not  to  allow  to 
the  Christianized  heart  the  right  and  duty  of  criticism  of  the  Scriptures 
(where  the  fault  in  reasoning  lies  in  the  term  process),  Kostlin  con- 
tinues :  "We  touch  here  on  the  relation  between  the  formal  and  material 
sides  of  the  fundamental  evangelical  principle.    And  we  think  at  once  of 
the  relation  in  which  they  stood  to  one  another  in  Luther's  representa- 
tion, by  which  his  well-known  '.ritical  attitude,  with  respect,  say,  to  the 
Epistle  of  James,  was  rendered  possible.    Calvin,  too,  now  has  no  wish 
to  speak  of  a  witness  of  the  Spirit  merely  with  reference  to  the  Script- 
ures, and  is  far  from  desiring  to  isolate  that  witness  of  the  Spirit  for 
the  Scriptures.     He  comes  back  to  it  subsequently,  when  speaking  of 
faith  in  the  saving  content  of  the  Gospel,  declaring  that  the  Spirit  seals 
the  contents  of  the  Word  in  our  hearts  (iS39,  xxix.  456  sq.,  468  sq.; 
further  in  1559,  III.  2).    He  also  inserted  in  the  section  on  the  Holy 
Scriptures  and  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  to  them,  in  ISSO,  an  additional 
special  sentence,  in  which  he  expressly  refers  to  his  intention  to  speak 
further  on  such  a  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  a  later  portion  of  the  treatise, 
and  declares  of  faith  in  general,  that  there  belongs  to  it  a  sealing  of 
the  divine  Spirit  (XXIX.  296  li559,  I.  vii.  5  near  end]).    In  any  event 
he  must  hav-  recurred  to  such  a  Spiritual  testimony  for  the  assurance 
of  individual  CHiristians  of  their  personal  election.     But  in  the  first 
instance— and  this  again  is  precisely  what  is  characteristic  for  Calvin- 
he  nevertheless  treats  of  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  origin   and  the 
divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of  the  witness  of  the  Spirit 
for  them,  wholly  apart.    The  presentation  proceeds  with  him  in  such  a 
manner,  that  the  Spirit  first  of  all  fully  produces  faith   in  this  character 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  only  then  the  Bible-believing  Christian  has  to 
receive  from  the  Scriptures  its  contents,  in  all  its  several  parts,  as 
divinely  true,— though,  no  doubt,  this  reception  and  this  faith  in  the 
several  elements  of  the  truth  are  by  no  means  matters  of  human 
thought,  but  are  ruther  to  be  performed  under  the  progressive  illumina- 
tion and  the  progressive  sealing  of  these  contents  in  the  heart  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.     Even  though  he,  meanwhile,  calls  that  the  'truth'  of  the 
Scriptures,  which  we  come  to  feel  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit,  he  means 


^o 


liKNJA.MlN    li.    WAKI-IELD 


by  tins  in  the  section  before  us,  an  absolute  truth-character,  which  must 
from  the  start  be  attributed  to  the  Scriptures  as  a  whole,  and  will  be 
experienced  in  and  with  the  divinity  of  the  Scriptures  in  general.  So 
the  matter  already  stands  in  the  edition  of  1539.  .  ,  .  (XXIX. 
292  sq.)."  Accordingly  Calvin  teaches  that  the  Scriptures  in  all  their 
parts  arc  of  indefectible  authority,  and  should  be  met  in  all  their  pre- 
scriptions with  unlin.iled  obedience  (p.  418),  because  it  is  just  God  who 
speaks  in  them.  Then:  "With  Domer  (Gcschichtc  der  frotcst.-Tlie- 
olo(jw.  380)— and  even  more  decisi.-cly  than  he  does  it— we  must  re- 
mark on  all  this  :  'The  formal  side  i)f  the  prottstant  principle  remains 
with  Calvin  with  an  overemphasis,  in  comparison  with  the  material, 
and  with  this  is  connected  that  he  sees  in  the  Holy  Sv;riptures  above 
all  else  the  revelation  of  the  will  of  God  which  he  has  dictated  to 
man  throuph  the  sacred  writers.'  And  this  tendency  came  ever  more 
strongly  forward  with  hitn  in  the  successive  revisions  of  the  Institutes. 
His  conception  of  the  formal  principle  thus  ijft  no  room  for  such  a 
criticism  as  Luther  employed  on  the  several  parts  of  the  canon."  Later 
Lutheranism,  however,  Kostlin  concludes  by  saying,  adopted  Calvin's 
point  of  view  here  and  even  exaggerated  it. 

"  "The  formal  side  of  the  Protestant  principle  retains  with  Calvin  the 
ascendency  over  the  material;  and  with  ihij  is  connected  the  fact  that  he 
sees  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  chiefly  the  revelation  of  the  will  of  God, 
which  he  has  prescribed  to  men  through  the  sacred  writers."— Dorner, 
Hist,  of  P'.>tfst.  Theology.  1.  390.  Cf.  p.  397:  "The  formal  principle 
IS  accordmg  to  him  the  norm  and  source  of  dogma,  whilst  he  does  not 
treat  faith,  in  the  same  way  as  Luther,  as  a  source  of  knowledge  for 
the  dogmatical  structure,  that  is  to  say,  as  the  mediative  principle  of 
knowledge."  Hence  Dorner  complains  (p.  390)  of  the  more  restricted 
freedom  which  Calvin  left  "for  the  free  productions  of  the  faith  of  the 
Church  in  legislation  and  dogma",  and  instances  his  treatment  of  "the 
Apostolic  Church  as  normative  for  all  times,  even  for  questions  of 
Church  constitution",  and  the  little  room  he  lei't  for  destructive  Biblical 
criticism.  Cf.  what  is  said  above  of  Calvin's  adoption  of  "the  Puritan 
principle". 

"Cf.  the  Introduction  to  the  English  Translation  of  Kuyper's  The 
Work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Cf.  what  Pannier,  pp.  102-4,  says  of  Calvin's 
general  doctrine  of  the  work  of  the  Spirit  and  the  relation  borne  to  it 
by  his  particular  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  :o  Scripture. 
"If  we  pass  beyond  the  two  particular  chapters  whose  contents  we  have 
been  analysing  and  seek  in  the  Institutes  from  1536  to  1560  for  other 
passages  relating  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  shall  see  Calvin  insisting  ever 
more  and  more  and  on  all  occasions.— as  in  the  Commentaries,— upon 


Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  knowledge  of  god     251 

these  diverse  manifestations  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  presenting  them  all 
more  or  leis  as  testimonies.    He  constantly  recurs  to  the  natural  inca- 
pacity 01  man  and  the  necessity  of  divine  illumination  in  his  mind,  and 
esoecially  in  his  heart,  for  the  act  of  faith.    It  is  from  this  point  of  view 
that  he  brings  together  the  ideas  of  the  Spirit  and  the  Word  of  God 
•  .  the  definition  of  faith:    'It  is  a  firm  and  certain  knowledge  of  the 
od  will  of  God  towards  us:  which,  being  grounded  in  the  free  promise 
given  in  Jesus  Christ,  is  revealed  to  our  heart  by  the  Holy  Spirit.     He 
introduces  the  same  ideas  in  his  introductory  remarks  on  the  Apostles 
Creed,  and  they  lie  at  the  basis  of  the  explication  he  gives  of  the  Third 
Article  in  all  its  forms,    .    .    .    e.  g.,  in  the  ed.  of  1560:   'In  sum.  He 
is  set  before  us  as  the  sole  fountain  from  which  a'.l  the  celestial  riches 
flow  down  to  us.     .     .     .     For  it  is  by  His  inspiration  that  we  are 
regenerated  into  celestial  life,  so  as  no  longer  to  govern  or  guide  our- 
selves, but  to  be  ruled  by  His  movement  and  operation;  so  that  if  there 
is  any  good  in  us,  it  is  only  the  fruit  of  His  grace.    .    .        But  since 
faith  is   His   prime   master-piece,  the   most   of  what   we   read   in   the 
Scriptures  of  His  virtue  and  operation  relates  itself  to  this  faith   by 
which  He  brings  us  to  the  brightness  of  the  Gospel,  in  a  manner  which 
justifies  calling  Him  the  King  by  whom  the  treasures  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  are   .ffered  to  us.  and  His  illumination  may  be  called  the  longing 
of  our  souis.'    From  these  quotations  it  is  made  plain  that  the  witness 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  at  the  opening  of  the  Institutes  in  1S39  ap- 
peared as  the  means  of  knmdcdge,  was  thenceforward  nevertheless  con- 
sidered, in  the  progress  of  the  work,  as  the  means  of  grace,  and  that 
taking  his  start  from  this  point  of  view.  Calvin  discovered  ever  more 
widely  extending  horizons,  so  as  at  the  end  to  speak  particularly  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  at  least  four  different  connections,  but  always-even  in 
the  first-in  direct  and  constant  relation  to  faith,  with  respect  to  its 
origin,  a.!d  with  respect  to  its  consequences:  and  by  no  means  aln.ost 
exclusivelv  with  respect  to  assurance  of  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures. 
The  progress  which  Pannier  supposes  he  traces  in  Calvms  doctrine  of 
the  work  of  the   Spirit   seems   illusory:    the   general   doctrine  of  the 
work  of  the  Spirit  is  already  pretty  fully  outlined  in  1536-  _  But  the 
relating  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  to  Scripture  to  Calvin  s  general 
doctrine  of  faith  as  the  product  of  the  Spirit  is  exacc  and  important 
for  the  understanding  of  his  teaching.    From  beginning  to  end,  Calvin 
conceived  the  confidence  of  the  Christian  in  Scripture,  wrought  by  the 
Holy  Spirit,  as  one  of  the  exercises  of  saving  faith.     Calvin  is  ever 
insistent  that  all  that  is  good  in  man  comes  from  the  Spint-whether  in 
the  sphere  of  thought,  feeling  cr  act.    "It  is  a  notion  of  the  natura 
man",  he  says  on  John  xvi.  17  (i5?.V   ix.  47-  33),  "to  despise  all  that 


BENJAMIN    n.    WARI-IELD 

the  Sacro<l  Scriptures  say  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  depending  rather  on  hi, 
own  reason,  and  to  reject  the  celestial  illumination.    .  ^         ?or  ou 
selves,  feehng  our  penury,  we  know  that  all  we  have  of  sound  Jn^w-' 
eclK.   comes  from  no  other  fountain.     Nevertheless  the  words  ofThe 
L^rd  Jesus  show  clearly  that  nothing  can  be  known  of  wha  ton  e^s 

enc"^^  fS?  ''>:.I'""'-  -"-•  ^t  He  is  known  only  by  the  e""e! 
"TZ  1    J        ■  °"'  •  "y'  ^^  ''Sain  (Institutes  of  ,543,  I   „o) 

shouij   hesitate    to   confess   that   he   attains    the   knowledg^   of   the 
myster.es  of  God  only  so  far  as  he  has  been   illuminated  by  God'! 

EtwV'f  •■'""'"''^*  ""^^  •'"""'^^^^  "^  himself  is  only  the  more 
blind  that  he  does  not  recognize  his  blindness  " 

;  0/v..  Cakini.  xiv.  727-73T  (Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  120) 

nf  ri      ,    n'-'"'  '"''"""  °^  •'"'  confusion  is  supplied  by  the  teaching 
of  Claude  Pa;on  (1626-.685).  who.  in  accordance  with  his  generaMo" 
tnne  that  "w.thout  any  other  grace  than  that  of  the  Word  God  change" 

mony  of  the  Sp.ru     as  nothmg  else  than  the  effect  of  the  indicia  of 
dmnuy  ,n  Scr.pture  on  the  mind.     The  eflFect  of  these  "marks"1s  a 

P  r"  ffr'thi       ■;":  ';'  """^'''  '"  l>r^^rr.u,e<l  circumstanc  s  ire 
pared   for    h.s  effect :    fact  per  alium  faeit  fer  se.     The  conception 

whir?  f  •'"^"^•/'  '^  "°  ^'"a"  testimony  to  the  cardina  place 
^h,ch  the  doctrme  of  "the  testimony  of  the  Spirit"  held  in  the  Re- 
formed system  of  the  seventeenth  century  that  Pajon  still  taught  i- 
and  t  .s  no  small  testimony  to  its  current  conception  as  just  "regenera- 
■on  that  Pajon  too  identified  it  with  regeneration,  expla  ned  of 
o.urse.  ,n  accordance  with  his  fundamental  principle  that  all  that  God 

r    ,7    i    /"v  ;       ""f  ,'"''"^-     ^"  °"  '"^^  ^^^^'  •-"tter  Jurieu. 

frr     V^'  H  r-'/(/'  '"  ^'■"'''  '^'  PP-  -'S-  ^-  ^ho  quotes  alike 

trnm  I'ajon  and  his  followers. 

citcd^°p"";92?"''  ^'  ''"'"''''""  ^"'*"""**   ('89^).  P-  46   (Pannier,  as 
"Pannier,  as  cited    pp.   ,88  sq..  is  quite  right  in  insisting  on  this 
Aft  r  quoting  D   H.  Meyer  (De  la  plaee  et  role  de  I'ApolooSti.ue  dans 
la  theolog,e  protestante  in  the  Rczue  de  theologie  et  des  guest,  relig 

ihe  'hSt'of  V",'^'  '^"*  '*"'  "'^'  "''""^  °^  '^'  »"'y  Spirit  in 
the   heart  of  Christians   is   not   a   subjective   phenomenon:    it   is  an 

objec  ive  thing  and  comes  from  God".-he  continues:  "Now  this  objec- 

ive  character  of  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  precisely  what  appears 

to  make  it    incomprehensible'  to  our  modern   theologians   (so  A.   E 

Mart-n.  La  Polcmque  de  R.  Simon  et  J.  Le  Clerc.  1880,  p   20-    'This 

intervention  of  the  Holy  Spirit  distinct  from  the  individual  Sn'sciout 

ness  appears  to  us  incomprehensible').    We  are  not  speaking  of  those 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      253 


who  venture  to  pretend  that  Calvin  identifies  the  witness  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  with  'the  intimate  feeling'  of  each  Christian.  When  one  takes 
his  place  by  the  side  of  Castellion  he  may  lawfully  say,  For  me  as  for 
him  'the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  confounds  itself  with  con- 
sciousness; these  revelations  made  to  the  humble  are  nothing  more 
than  the  intuitions  of  a  moral  and  religious  sense  fortified  by  medi- 
tation' (Buisson,  Castellion,  I.  304,  cf.  201 :  'Castellion  placed  above  the 
tradition  of  the  universal  Church  his  own  sense,  his  own  reason,  or 
rather,  let  us  say  it  all  at  once,  for  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  debate, 
his  consciousness').  But  when  one  invokes  the  real  fathers  of  the  real 
Reformation,  ah,  please  do  not  take  for  their's  the  very  opinions  they 
combat.  To  make  of  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit  the  equivalent  of 
the  testimony  of  the  human  spirit,  of  the  individual  consciousness,  is  to 
deny  the  real  existence  and  the  distinct  role  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  to 
show  that  we  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  faith  expounded  by 
Calvin  so  clearly,  and  defended  through  a  century  against  the  attacks 
of  the  Catholics  as  one  of  the  essential  bases  of  the  Reformed  theology 
and  piety."  Again,  Pannier  is  quite  right  in  his  declaration  (p.  214)  : 
"What  we  deny  is  that  our  reason — moral  consciousness,  religious  con- 
sciousness, the  term  is  of  no  importance — can,  of  itself,  make  us  see  the 
divinity  of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  this  which  sees  it;  but  it  is  the  Holy 
Spirit  which  makes  us  see  it.  He  is  not  the  inner  eye  for  seeing  the 
truth  which  is  outside  of  us,  but  the  supernatural  hand  which  comes  to 
open  the  eye  of  our  consciosusness — an  eye  which  is,  no  doubt,  divine 
in  the  sense  that  it  too  was  created  by  God,  but  which  has  been  blinded 
by  the  consequences  of  sin." 

"See  especially  P.  Du  Moulin,  Le  luge  des  Controverses,  1636,  pp. 
294  sq.,  and  cf.  Pannier,  as  cited,  pp.  64-68. 

"Diologue  with  Trypho  7  (Of p.  ed.  Otto,  I.  32)  :  oi  yip  avvorri,  oiit 
ovyimiTi  vaffl»  iariv.  ci  iiiiri^d^  Sep  avnirai.  Koli  Xpiorit  airroi:  "these  things 
cannot  be  perceived  or  understood  by  all,  but  only  by  the  man  to  whom 
God  and  His  Christ  have  given  it  to  understand  them." 

"In  Genes.  V.  homil.  xxi  (Migne,  liii.  175)  :  Auiroi  toCto  vpoa-^Ku  mat 
inrb  Tijt  iiiuBtf  x<^P'^o*  iSriyotitmvt,  Kal  r^v  rapd  rov  dyiov  HvtiiMTot  tWn^vfun 
Stianimit  ovTon  iitUvai  t4  BtXa  \iiyui:  "For  we  must  be  led  by  the  grace 
from  above,  and  must  receive  the  illumination  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to 
approach  the  divine  oracles;  for  it  is  not  human  wisdom  but  the 
revelation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  that  is  needed  for  understanding  the 
Holy  Scriptures."  It  will  be  perceived  that  it  is  more  distinctly  the 
understanding  of  the  Scriptures  than  the  reception  of  them  as  from 
God  which  is  in  question  with  both  Justin  and  Chrysostom. 
"  De  Trinitate,  ii.  34:   Animus  humanus,  nisi  per  fidem  donum  Spir- 


_,-^  BENJAMIN    B.    WAKFIELD 

i,„s   hauscri,.  habebit   quidem   na.uram   Dcum   intelligendi.   ^-<^}^^l^ 
scicntiae  n-n  habobit:  iii.  .'4:  "on  cnim  conc.p.unt  imperfecta  perfectum. 
neauc  Qucd  ex  alio  subsistit,  absolute  vel  auctoris  su.  potest  .ntell.gcn- 
dl  .S  re.  vel  prcpriatn;  v.  ., :  neque  cnim  nobis  ea  natura  est  ut  se 
iic"  elestem  ;.gni.iunem  suis  viribus  efferat.  A  Deo  d.scendum  est  qu.d 
de  Deo  inteUigendum  sit;  quia  non  nisi  se  auctore  "^oBnosctur  .^ 

Loquendum  ergo  non  aliter  de  Deo  est.  quan,  ut  .pse  ^^  !";;»«!"  '^'J 
nostram   de    se   Iccutus   est.     Hilary   certamly   teaches   that    for   such 
crelres  as  men  there  can  be  no  knowledge  of  God  except  .t  be  God 
uughf   but  it  is  not  so  clear  that  he  teaches  that  for  sinful  creatures 
tS  ?e  must  be  a  special  iUapse  of  the  Spirit  that  such  as  they 'nay^ow 
God-may  perceive  Him  in  His  Word  and  so  recognue  ^hat  Word  a 
from  Him  and  derive  a  true  knowledge  of  H.m  from  .t    /*  ».th* 
soterioTogical  doctrine  which  is  Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Sp.r.ts 
testin.ony :   not  that  ontological  one.  .    ^   ,1.     •.      :_ 

"c     article-   Augustine's  Doctrine  of  Knowledge  and  Authortty.  .n 
Tlu-  i'riHCcton  ThcoUujical  Re^'icu-  for  July  and  October,  1907. 
■' /frirf.   p.  ^60  sq.     "/bid.,  p.  571  sq. 

-^Trat    iii.  in  W-  Joau.  ad  Parthos,  ii.   13  (Migne  ^xxv.  200  sq.) 
Wn      -There  is.  then.  I  say.  a  Master  within  that  teacheth:   Chns 
leSeth;   His  inspiration  teacheth.     Where   His  msp.rat.on  and  H.s 
unction  are  not,  in  vain  do  words  make  a  no.se  from  without. 
^Conff    xi.  3  (Migne.  xxxii.  811).     Cf.  vi.  5   (M.gne.  xxxn.  723  • 
"Pannier   /oc  c./..  says:   "The  whole  of  the  testimony  of    he  Holy 
Soirltl  not  yet  here.    Only  once  is  the  Holy  Spirit  Himself  named 
f J.    Lese  passages  from  Augustine]  in  a  formal  way.    But  August.ne 
has  the   intuition  of  a  mysterious  work  wrought  m  the   soul  of  the 
Sri  San.  oJ  an  understanding  of  the  Bible  which  comes  not  from  man 
but  f  om  a  power  exterior  and  superior  to  h.m;  and  he  sets  forth  the 
r6k  whTch  t'his  direct  correspondence  between  the  book  and  the  read  r 
may  X  in  the  foundation  of  Christian  certitude.    In  th.s    as  .n  so 
Tany  other  points,  Augustine  was  the  precursor  of  the  Reformat.on 
and  a  precursor  without  immediate  followers:    for  except  a  couple  of 
J^y  vague  and  isolated  hints  in   Salvianus   (De  Prov,d..  ....     )   and 

GreUy  "he  Great  (t6o4,  Homil.  in  Ezek.  I.  x).  noth.ng  urther  .s 
?ound  on  this  subject  through  ten  centuries:  it  comes  inio  v.ew  ag^.n 
at  the  approach  of  the  new  age.  when  thought  asp.red  to  free  tself 
tin  the  Scholastic  ruts,  with  Bid  (t  M95;  Ub.  u,.  Sent.  d.st.  25. 
dub.  3^  and  Cajetan  (t  I534,  Opera.  H.  ..  i). 
"/.■ri    cd   is','^  (.Corpus  Ref.  x\i.  60s).  u  v    • 

-Dr  i'cr  •  et  falu,  reUaionc:  Cum  constet  verbo  nusquam  fidem  haber. 
quam  ubi  Pater  traxit,  Spiritus  monuit.  unctio  docuit    .     .  .    hanc  rem 


CALVIN'S  DOCTRINE   OF  THE    KNOWLEDGE   OK  GOD      255 

seel  in  animis   hominum  tenacissime  sedet.     Experientia  est    nam  oi 

ZLri,  ■*  f  ^-^  ^"^°  ^''  ""*""  ^"^cultant  homines  pure  et 
sincentcr  verbum  De.  discunt.  Deinde  per  Spiritum  Dei  in  I^um 
rahun.ur  et  veluti  transforman.ur.  VonKlarlcit  undGe^s^Ts 
lVor,s  Goues  (O.p.I.S^)  :   'The  Scriptures  came  from  God^    from 

Zlo'    ■.•    ""V'!^^°''**>°  has  shincd  into  them  will  Himself  giv^ 
you  to  understand  that  their  speech  comes  from  God":    Cf   the    n^lr 

-E   Rabaud,  Hist  de  la  doctr.  de  linspiration.  etc.  (,883).  pp.  32-33 

J^  .'hf  HnV'^'  "ru"^"  "''  '"""  ^'^°''""»  "  '"  Principe  standing 
on  the  doctrme  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit.    With  respect  to    hf 
mterpretatton  o    Scripture  he  remarks:    "The  hermeneut  cTJr  nciple 
of  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  (if  we  may  speak  of  it  as  a  princTpTe) 
.s  common  to  all  the  Reformers.    Luther  only,  without  being'  Sant 
of  ,  .  makes  no  use  of  it.     Besides  that  it  responded  to  the  Sle^fc 
need  .  .t  responded  ,0  the  aspirations  of  the  faith  and  of  the  p^  ^5 
simple  men.  better  than  rational  demonstrations"  (p.  50,  note  4).    "In 
a  general  way",  he  remarks,  pp.  32-33.  "Luther  considered  the  BiW^ 
as  the  sole  incontestable  and  absolute  authority.     Here  is  the  silid 
foundation  of  the  edifice,  the  impregnable  citaLl  in  ^h!  h  he  shit 
himself  m  order  to  repell  all  attacks.    It  is  for  him.  in  truth,  a  religious 
axiom,  a  postulate  o    faith,  and  not  a  dogma  or  a  theory;  it  i,  revS 
o  his  believing  soul  independently  of  all  intellectual  activity     Thus 
Luther,  trusting  m  the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  operating  through  the 
Scriptures    does  not  pause  to  prove  its  authority,  nor  to  estabfish  it 
d^alecfcany:    it  imposes  itself;  a  systematic  treatment  is  not  needed! 
hi,  L>h     "Tl  "  "'*=.«""*'*"«»  demanded  it.  he  gave  reasons  for 
his  faith  and  his  submission.     Poor  arguments  to  modem  thinking 
but  in  his  times,  and  commended  by  his  vibrant  eloquence  and  powerful 
personality,  possessing  a  power  of  persuasion  very  impressive 

;  t^MUl,  If  *°  ^""t"'  *'  ""'^  ">'•  '°  '"'"  '"'^  »"  argument"  to 
establish  what  was  evident  to  him.  He  did  not  attempt,  therefore  to 
prove  the  authority  of  the  Bible.-he  asserted  it  repeatedly  ^w^rL 
words  in  passionate  declarations,  but  rarely  if  ever  proceeds  by  a 
formal  demonstration"  (p.  32-33).     Raising  the  question  of  Zwingli's 

"No  mor     .L      T''  I"'  'T"'  °'  •"^'""^'°"   (P-  47).  he  remarks 
Jh    K T!  th*  others  does  Zwingli  respond  to  these  questions, 

which  had  not  yet  been  raised.     God  has  spoken:    the  Bible  contain 
His  word:   that  is  enough.    The  divinity  of  the  Bible  is  once  more  a 


256 


BENJAMIN    B.    WAHKIELD 


fact,  an  axiom,  so  much  so  that  he  does  not  dream  of  establishing  it 
or  of  <lcftn(ling  it." 

"So  Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  63:  "Like  all  the  other  essential  parts  of 
the  Reformed  Dogmatics,  the  doctrine  of  the  internal  testimony  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  found  in  germ  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Institutes, 
although  still  without  any  development.  It  is  almost  possible  to  deny 
that  it  exists  there,  as  has  been  done  with  predestination.  N'evertheless 
if  the  doctrine  is  not  yet  scientifically  formulated,  it  may  yet  be  per- 
ceived to  preexist  necessarily  as  an  essential  member  of  the  complete 
body  of  doctrine  which  is  slowly  to  grow  up."  When  Pannier  comes, 
however  (pp.  72-77),  to  expound  in  detail  the  germs  of  the  doctrine 
as  they  lie  in  the  edition  of  1536,  it  turns  out  that  there  is  not  only 
no  full  development  of  the  doctrine  in  that  edition,  but  also  no  explicit 
mention  of  it,  as  it  is  applied  to  the  conviction  which  the  Christian  has 
of  the  divinity  of  Scripture;  so  that  it  preexists  in  this  edition  only 
as  implicit  in  its  general  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  and  His  work. 

••  By  Pannier,  p.  69. 

"  Pannier,  as  cited,  p.  77,  notes  that  "the  words :  testimonio  Spiritus 
Sancti  occur  only  a  single  time,  at  the  end,  and  in  the  old  sense  of — 
'by  the  divinely  inspired  Scriptures'."  He  refers  to  the  ed.  of  1536, 
p.  470,  that  is,  Ot'p.  I.  228:  and  notes  that  this  passage  was  dropped 
in  the  edition  of  1559  (0pp.  IV.  796,  note  5).  The  passage  runs:  "Thus 
Hezckiah  is  praised  by  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit" — that  is,  obvi- 
ously, "by  the  inspired  Scriptures" — "for  having  broken  up  the  brazen 
serpent  which  Moses  had  made  by  Divine  command." 

"Kostlin,  as  cited,  p.  411,  strongly  states  these  facts.  The  whole  of 
the  discussion  on  the  sources  and  norms  of  religious  truth  "is  altogether 
lacking  in  the  original  form"  of  the  Institutes :  "Calvin  worked  out 
this  section  for  the  first  time  for  the  edition  of  1539":  but  it  is  found 
here  already  thoroughly  done,  "in  all  its  fundamental  traits  already 
complete  and  mature".  He  adds  that  the  Lutheran  dogmatists  (as 
well  as  the  Reformed)  at  once,  however,  took  up  the  construction  of 
Calvin  and  inade  it  their  own. 

"The  history  of  the  doctrine  among  the  Reformed  is  touched  on  by 
A.  Schweizer,  Glaubenslehre,  I.  §  32;  among  the  old  Lutherans  by 
Klaiber,  Die  Lehrc  der  altprotestantischen  Dogmatiker  von  dem  test. 
Sp.  Sancti  in  the  JahrbUcher  fiir  d.  Theologie,  1857,  pp.  1-53.  Its 
history  among  French  theologians  is  traced  by  Pannier,  as  cited.  Part 
III,  pp.  139-181,  cf.  186-193:  his  notes  on  the  history  outside  of  France 
(pp.  181-185)  are  very  slight.  On  pp.  161-163  Pannier  essays  to  gather 
together,  chiefly,  as  it  appears,  from  the  scattered  citations  in  the  Pro- 
testant controversialists  of  the  seventeenth  century  (p.  162,  note  2),  the 


CALVIN  S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLFDGE  OF  GOD      257 


hints  which  appear  in  the  Romish  writers,  mainly  Jesuits  of  the  early 
seventeenth  century,  of  recognition  of  the  internal  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  illuminating  the  soul.  These  bear  more  or  less  resetnblanre  to 
the  T^.otestant  doctrine  of  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  ^ome  of  the 
passages  he  cites  are  quite  striking,  but  do  not  go  beyond  the  common 
boundaries  of  universal  Christian  supernaturalism. 

**In  his  brief  remarks  on  the  subject  in  his  Dogmengeschichte  des 
Protestantismtu,  I,  1908,  p.  178  sq.,  Otto  Ritschl  seeks  to  discriminate 
between  the  Reformed  and  Lutherans  in  their  conception  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Spirit ;  but  his  discrimination  touches  rather  the  application 
than  the  essence  of  the  matter. 

**  Some  of  them  are  cited,  e.  g.,  by  Schweixer,  as  cited,  followed,  f.  g., 
by  Pannier,  as  cited  (p.  186) — such  as:  "Faith  is  already  presupposed 
when  a  peculiar  authority  is  conceded  to  Scripture" — "The  recognition 
of  what  is  canonical  comes  into  existence  only  gradually  and  progress- 
ively, since  the  sense  for  the  truly  Apostolic  is  a  gracious  gift  which 
grows  up  only  gradually  in  the  Chu-rh", — "Faith  cannot  be  established 
in  unbelievers  by  the  Scriptures,  so  that  their  divine  authority  is  in  the 
first  instance  proved  from  merely  rational  considerations." — There  is 
much  that  is  true  and  well  said  in  such  remarks,  and  they  enrich  the 
writings  of  Schleiermacher  and  his  followers  with  a  truly  spiritual 
clement.  But  at  bottom  the  central  position  occupied  is  vitiated  by  the 
use  of  "faith"  as  an  "undistributed  middle",  and  the  remarks  of  writers 
of  this  type  do  not  so  much  tend  to  exa't  the  place  of  saving  faith  as  to 
depress  the  authority  of  Scripture,  by  practically  denying  the  existence 
or  validity  of  fides  humana.  That  attitude  towards  the  Scriptures  which 
gladly  and  heartily  recognizes  them  as  the  Word  of  the  Living  God,  and 
with  all  delight  in  them  as  such,  seeks  to  subject  all  thought  and  feeling 
and  action  to  their  direction,  certainly  is,  if  not  exactly  a  product  of 
"true  faith",  yet  (as  the  Westminster  Confession  defines  it)  an  exercise 
of  true  faith,  and  a  product  of  that  inward  creative  operation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  from  which  all  true  faith  comes:  that  keen  taste  for  the  divine 
which  is  the  outgrowth  of  the  spiritual  gift  of  discrimination — the 
"distinguishing  of  things  that  differ"  which  Paul  gives  a  place  among 
Christian  graces — is  assuredly  a  "gift  of  grace"  which  may  grow  more 
and  more  strong  as  the  Christian  life  effloresces;  and  such  a  taste  for 
the  divine  cannot  be  awakened  in  unbelievers  by  the  natural  action  of 
the  Scriptures  or  any  rational  arguments  whatever,  but  require?  for  its 
production  the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ab  extra  accidens.  But  it  is 
a  totally  different  question  whether  the  peculiarity  of  Scripture  as  a 
divine  revelation  can  call  out  no  intellectual  recognition  in  the  minds 
of  inquiring  men,  but  must  remain  wholly  hidden   and  produce  no 


!5S 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


there-   hut  ».„„  awake  >t— though  opinions  may  differ 

To  say  ^1  is  ir^r.  T"  "l'  '*  "  '^  '"*"«  '"""-"^  -•^«ibU 
CalvTn  said  ^3  ill  h  .  ?„ ,°  "^  ""*  ""°"  ^""^  "*'•  ''''ich  is  what 

catof  a  trth"'^?"*'^'  """  ""'  ""  «"-•»  °^  rea;:;;i„r  obUvefy 
cannot  alter  the  relations  of  evidence  to  conclu.inn.       *" "''^"**''' 

iir  'r  r-  ^rj"'  ^^^--^^  o/Lnx  eonsf/u^tXr 

?  aTen     ?t  T,  t'h     M  ,°"''c'  *"  "*"  ""'"«*»  '"''>  '»«  kingdom  of 
kSn,  Tg^^  S  IoT  BuT'thrr'"'  ''^  "T"'^  "  ^"''^  '^^ 

aTd:h';',;h;ir:aniL77ar"''  "'^"^-  -^  ^^-^^  -"^'>  - 

1  w''"^'"''""'''''  ^"Smaliek.  ed.  i,  vol.  I.  ,42-5,  420-22  400-1 
'-Wrttten.  no  doubt,  by  Leger.  moderator  aVthel^e  ^fThe  Table" 
nnd  preser^-ed  for  us  in  his  Histoire  gcn^rale  rf«  ZL«  ^LT/        ' 

ins  Prof.  J.  S.  Candlish  (Bri,.  and  For.  Ev  rT LT^  ^?,>  'il  ' 
st.re"  that  Gillespie  has  here  left  his  mark  on  'the'JonfeS  ;''  jZ 
•^{'sc.llany  QucsHon,.  in  the  XXI  of  which  occurs  the  passa«  from 
G,I lespie  from  which  the  Confession  is  supposed  to  hav  5ra^'  was^ 
posthumous  work,  published  in  ,649:  but  a  number  of  th^^lJIs  o? 
wh,ch  It  IS  made  up  have  the  appearance  of  being  briefs  drain  up  by 


CALVIN'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD      259 

Gillrtpie  for  hii  own  tatisfaction,  or  as  preparations  for  speeches,  or 
possibly  even  as  papers  handed  in  to  committees,  during  the  discussions 
of  the  Westminster  Assembly.  The  language  in  question,  however, 
whether  m  Gillespie  or  in  the  Confession,  is  so  strongly  reminiscent 
of  Calvin,  that  the  possibility  seems  to  remain  open  that  the  resem- 
blance between  Gillespie  and  the  Confession  is  due  to  their  common 
relation  to  Calvin.  Here  is  the  passage  in  Gillespie  (PresbyUrian 
Armoury  ed,  pp.  105-106) :  "The  Scripture  is  known  to  be  indeed 
the  word  of  God  by  the  beams  of  divine  authority  it  hath  in  itself,  and 
by  certain  distinguishing  characters,  which  do  infallibly  prove  it  to  be 
the  Word  of  God;  such  as  the  heavenliness  of  the  matter;  the  majesty 
of  the  style  I  the  irresistible  power  over  the  conscience;  the  general  scope, 
to  abase  man  and  to  exalt  God ;  nothing  driven  at  but  God's  glory  and 
man's  salvation ;  the  extraordinary  holiness  of  the  penmen  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  without  respect  to  any  particular  interests  of  their  own,  or  of 
others  of  their  nearest  relations  (which  is  manifest  by  their  writings) ; 
the  supernatural  mysteries  recorded  therein,  which  coula  never  tiave 
entered  into  the  reason  of  men;  the  marvellous  consent  of  all  parts 
and  passages  (though  written  by  divers  and  several  penmen),  even 
where  there  is  some  appearance  of  difference;  the  fulfilling  of  prophe- 
cies; the  miracles  wrought  by  Christ,  by  the  prophets  and  apostles; 
the  conservation  of  the  Scriptures  against  the  malice  of  Satan  and 
fuiy  of  persecutors ;— these  and  the  like  are  characters  and  marks 
which  evidence  the  Scriptures  to  be  the  Word  of  (3od;  yet  all  these 
cannot  beget  in  the  soul  a  full  persuasion  of  faith  that  the  Scriptures 
are  the  Word  of  Ck>d ;  this  persuasion  is  from  the  Holy  Ghost  in  our 
hearts.  And  it  hath  been  the  common  resolution  of  sound  Protestant 
writers  (though  now  called  in  question  by  the  sceptics  of  this  age  [the 
allusion  being  to  "Mr.  J.  J.  Godwin  in  his  Hagiomastix"] )  that  these 
arguments  and  infallible  characters  in  the  Scripture  itself,  which  most 
certainly  prove  it  to  be  the  Word  of  God.  cannot  produce  a  certainty 
of  persuasion  in  our  hearts,  but  this  is  done  by  the  Spirit  of  CkhI 
within  us,  according  to  these  Scriptures,  i  Cx)r.  ii.  10-15;  J  Thes.  i.  5; 
I  John  ii.  27;  v.  6-8,  10;  John  vi.  45".— Whatever  may  be  the  imme- 
diate source  of  the  Confessional  statement,  C^ilvin  is  clearly  the  real 
source  of  Gillespie's  statement.— For  the  essence  of  the  matter  Gil- 
lespie's discussion  is  notably  clear  and  exact,  particularly  with  reference 
to  the  relation  of  the  indicia  to  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  a  matter 
which  he  strangely  declares  had  not  to  his  knowledge  been  discussed 
before.  The  clarity  of  his  determinations  here  is  doubtless  due  to  the 
specific  topic  which  he  is  in  this  Question  investigating,  viz.,  the 
validity  of  the  argument  from  marks  and  fruits  of  sanctification  to  our 


^6o 


BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD 


interest  in  Christ :  a  parallel  question  in  the  broader  soteriological  sphere 
to  the  place  of  indicia  in  our  conviction  of  the  divinity  of  Scripture, 
which  he  therefore  uses  illustratively  for  hit  main  problem.  "It  may  be 
asked",  he  remarks,  "and  it  is  a  question  worthy  to  be  looked  into 
(though  I  must  confess  I  have  not  read  it,  nor  heard  it,  handled  before). 
How  doth  the  assurance  by  marks  agree  with  or  differ  from  assurance 
by  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit?  Has  the  soul  here  assurance  either 
way,  or  must  there  be  a  concurrence  of  both  (for  I  suppose  they  are 
not  one  and  the  same  thing)  to  make  up  the  assurance?"  (105).  He 
proves  that  they  are  "not  one  and  the  same  thing";  and  then  ihows 
solidly  that  for  assurance  there  "must  be  a  concurrence  of  both".  "To 
make  no  trial  by  marks",  he  says,  "and  to  trust  an  inward  testimony, 
under  the  notion  of  the  Holy  Ghost's  testimony,  when  it  is  without  the 
least  evidence  of  any  true  gracious  marks,  this  way  (of  its  nature,  and 
intrinsically,  or  in  itself)  is  a  deluding  and  ensnaring  of  conscience" 
(p.  105).  That  is  to  say,  a  blind  confidence  and  conviction,  without 
cognizable  grounds  in  evidence  cannot  be  trusted.  Again  and  very 
clearly :  "So  that,  in  the  business  of  assurance  and  full  persuasion,  the 
evidences  of  graces  and  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  are  two  concurrent 
causes  or  helps,  both  of  them  necessary.  Without  the  evidence  of 
graces,  it  is  not  a  safe  nor  a  well-grounded  assurance"  (p.  106).  It 
remains  only  to  add  that  while  arguing  this  out  in  the  wider  soterio- 
logical sphere,  Gillespie  appears  to  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the 
accrediting  of  the  Scriptures  as  divine— giving  that  case,  in  the  course 
oihh  argument,  as  an  illustration  to  aid  in  determining  his  conclusion. 
"•For  the  meaning  of  the  Confession's  statement,  supported  by  illus- 
trative excerpts  from  its  authors,  see  The  Presbyterian  and  Reformed 
Ret  tew.  IV.  604-627;  and  cf.  W.  Cunningham,  Theological  Lectures. 
X.  Y.,  iSyS,  pp.  320  sq,  and  The  Presbyterian  Quarterly,  Jan'y,  1894. 
p.  22. 


^618  He 


